Hinglish, Manglish, Tanglish: why customers can't find your business on Google
Indians search in their own script, in English letters and in English. Here is why that splits your traffic — and how to rank for all three.
A customer in Kochi looking for a dentist might type കൊച്ചിയിലെ ഡെന്റൽ ക്ലിനിക്, kochiyil nalla dental clinic or dental clinic kochi. A customer in Delhi might type दिल्ली में अच्छा डेंटिस्ट or delhi mein accha dentist. These are the same need, written three different ways.
Most websites are written only in English, so they can only match the third kind of search. The other two — often the larger share in smaller cities — go to whoever happens to use those words: a directory, a competitor, or nobody.
Why it happens
Search engines match the words people type with the words on your pages. If someone types in Malayalam script and your page has only English, there is very little to match. Romanised searches like Hinglish or Manglish are harder still, because spellings vary: accha, acha and achha are all common.
How to fix it
- Find the real searches. Google Search Console shows the exact words people used before they saw your site. Group the native-script, romanised and English versions of the same need together.
- Write for people, in their language. Create a page in the customer's language that answers the question fully — prices, timings, location, how to book. Use the romanised words naturally, the way customers write them.
- Connect the language versions. Give each language its own address (for example
/hi/or/ml/) and tell Google which pages are translations of each other using hreflang tags. - Keep Google Business Profile in sync. Reply to reviews in the language the customer wrote in. Local results lean heavily on your profile.
What not to do
Don't paste machine translation word for word, and don't stuff a page with every spelling variant. Both read badly to people, and search engines reward pages that people find useful.
Doondo does this grouping and page creation automatically, in every Indian language, and asks for your approval on WhatsApp before anything is published.