International SEO • Google Merchant • PrestaShop Localization
How We Solved a Long-Standing International PrestaShop Problem: Clean Country URLs + Correct Google Indexing
When combined, Geo Targeting Pro and Advanced Shop URL Localization make the URL authoritative and force the correct country context—so Google reads the right currency, prices, and tax configuration for each market.
The core issue international shops keep hitting
International PrestaShop stores have faced the same structural problem for years: Google (and other crawlers) do not consistently see the correct country, currency, or pricing context.
That mismatch causes real business damage:
- Merchant Center feeds pull default-country prices
- Google indexes the wrong currency
- Taxes display or calculate incorrectly
- Catalog rules apply to the wrong market
- Crawlers set fallback cookies that poison localization
- VPN/proxy traffic breaks country context
Many stores rely on IP-based geo-detection to fix this. The problem is simple: bots don’t behave like normal visitors. Even “accurate” geo detection fails if the application context is wrong.
What PrestaShop is actually deciding
PrestaShop’s output—pricing, tax rules, currency, and language—depends on the current country context, which is derived from a mix of cookies, session state, and (sometimes) IP-based geo-detection.
If Googlebot lands in the wrong context, it can index product data that is valid for a different country than the URL implies. That’s how international shops end up with feed mismatches and incorrect indexed pricing.
The structural fix: make the URL authoritative
The real solution is not “better IP detection.” The real solution is: the URL must define the market, and the application must enforce that context immediately.
Step 1: Clean language–country URLs
With Advanced Shop URL Localization, your store uses structured market URLs such as:
/en-us/
/en-gb/
/fr-fr/
/de-de/
/es-es/This ensures the URL itself expresses the intended market (language + country) in a way humans and search engines understand.
Step 2: Enforce the country context for bots and real visitors
With Geo Targeting Pro, when a crawler or visitor lands on /de-de/, /fr-fr/, or /en-us/, PrestaShop is forced into the correct context immediately:
- Sets the correct country
- Aligns the language with the URL
- Loads the correct currency
- Applies the correct tax configuration
- Triggers the correct catalog rules
- Sets the correct cookie/session state
The URL becomes the source of truth. IP-based misdetection no longer overrides your market architecture.
What this unlocks for Google Merchant and international SEO
Once the URL defines the market and the application enforces context, you can reliably build:
- Language–country Google Merchant feeds
- Market-specific product exports and XML feeds
- Accurate localized pricing (no default-country leakage)
- Correct tax-inclusive or tax-exclusive outputs
- Clean indexing with consistent hreflang strategy
- Market-aligned catalog rules and currency outputs
In plain terms: Google reads exactly what customers in that country would see.
Why this was a “long time” issue
PrestaShop is strong “by country,” but many international builds end up with a mismatch between: URL structure, geo-detection, cookies, and country context. That’s how you get situations like:
-
/fr-fr/in French language but default-country pricing -
/en-gb/in GBP but the wrong tax rules - Feeds exporting fallback-country values
- Search engines indexing inconsistent market data
The correct international architecture (in one sentence)
Clean URL defines the market.
Geo Targeting Pro enforces the country context.
PrestaShop loads the correct configuration.
Google indexes the correct localized product data.
Who this is for
This setup is especially valuable if you:
- Sell in multiple currencies
- Use catalog price rules by country
- Display tax-inclusive prices in the EU
- Need multiple Google Merchant feeds per market
- Operate multi-language Europe or EU + US
If you want scalable international SEO and compliant, country-aware Google product feeds, this is the foundation you build on.