Multilingual · 2 November 2026 · 4 min read
Bilingual website: doing German and Turkish right
How a German-Turkish bilingual website works well: separate URLs, proper translation, language choice and Google. From a trilingual developer's practice.
Many businesses in Karlsruhe have German- and Turkish-speaking customers. A website that speaks only one of the two gives away half. For two languages to really work, a few details matter.
Five things that make a good bilingual website
- 01
Own URLs per language
e.g. /de/ and /tr/. Only then can Google find both versions separately.
- 02
Real translation, not machine
Tone and terms must be right in both languages.
- 03
A language switch people find
Visible in the menu, and it remembers the choice.
- 04
Hints for Google (hreflang)
So Turkish searchers get the Turkish page.
- 05
Legal pages in German
Imprint and privacy policy must exist in German.
Common mistakes
- A single plugin that machine-translates texts
- Both languages on the same URL, switched by a button
- Images with baked-in text that exist in one language only
- Forms and error messages only in German
This website itself is an example: fully available in German, Turkish and English, with own URLs, automatic language choice by browser and proper hints for Google.
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