Should default language of multilingual website be a part of the URL? [closed]

Question

I have set up a multilingual website, whose default language is English and it is translated in many more languages. We have chosen for the subdirectory URL strategy, so that our URLs are like example.com/en, example.com/fr etc. Should the default language be omitted from those URLs? So instead of

• example.com/en
• example.com/fr
• example.com/de

we could use

• example.com (default site language, EN in this case)
• example.com/fr
• example.com/de

Which is better in terms of SEO, UX, best practices?

p.s. I have read this and this but focus is given on whether translation of URLs is optimal and they do not really address my question. FYI, in my case, either the English wording is retained (example.com/en/about, example.com/fr/about) or in cases when this is not possible, the URL is transliterated.

Answer 1

I think representing the default language in the URL is the better choice.

Pros:

• If you decide to change the default language, you don’t have to change your URLs.
• Consistency.
• It allows you to redirect from / based on the visitor’s language preference.
• It’s a signal that your site is available in multiple languages.
• It’s easier for users that want to change the language from the URL.
• It allows users of external search engines to search for pages in the default language only (site:example.com/en/; where site:example.com/ would find pages in all languages).

Cons:

I can’t think of any reasons not to include the default language’s code in the URL.