The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine passed a law according to which all websites must open by default in the Ukrainian language. All other languages are allowed only as alternative versions.
Many business owners have a logical question:
➤ How will this affect the website?
➤ What are the SEO risks and legal consequences?
Let’s find out.
What the law states
Since April 25, 2019, a law has come into force in Ukraine requiring that all websites registered in the country provide the main version of their content in the Ukrainian language. From July 16, 2022, this obligation also applies to mobile applications and user interfaces. It is important to understand how this affects SEO and traffic.
➤ Ukrainian version only, with no alternatives. If your website is available exclusively in Ukrainian, without support for other language versions, you risk losing a significant share of traffic. In some niches, Ukrainian-language queries may account for only about 30% of the current demand in Russian — depending on the industry. ➤ Russian-language version in a subfolder (e.g., /ru/). Moving the Russian-language version of the website to a subfolder (e.g., site.ua/ru/) may result in a temporary drop in traffic. However, with proper reindexing and SEO efforts, you can restore your positions and regain previous results. ➤ Ignoring the law — fines. Violating the law may lead to fines. For the first violation, a fine of 5100 to 8500 UAH is imposed, especially for media websites. Repeated violations may result in a 340 UAH fine for each instance.
To avoid fines and minimize traffic loss, it is important to comply with legal requirements. Proper localization and correct setup of different language versions of your site will help maintain search engine rankings and keep your audience.
Solutions to minimize risks and preserve traffic
To comply with the law, retain your traffic, and attract a new audience, use the following approaches (in order of priority):
1. Creating a Ukrainian version with the Russian version retained in a subfolder
Creating a Ukrainian version of the website while keeping the Russian version in a subfolder is an effective solution to comply with the law and minimize SEO losses.
➤ Ukrainian version as primary: site.ua — the main version in Ukrainian.
➤ Russian version in a subfolder: move the Russian version to site.ua/ru/ and keep other pages at their previous URLs.
➤ Ukrainian pages in /ua/ subfolder: create separate Ukrainian-language pages following the structure site.ua/ua/page/.
➤ Advantages: minimal SEO loss, up to 10% traffic growth due to Ukrainian-language queries.
➤ Solution: configure proper internal linking to reduce losses, especially if the homepage was not promoted with non-branded queries.
Correct setup and structure will help maintain rankings and reduce traffic loss.
2. Using a 302 redirect for the homepage
Set up a 302 redirect from the main site homepage (site.ua) to the Ukrainian version (site.ua/ua/) to comply with legal requirements. This type of redirect signals to search engines that the page is temporarily redirected, allowing you to retain current index positions while you work on translating and adapting the site.
➤ Features of a 302 redirect: the old homepage will remain indexed by search engines, but its rankings may decline due to prolonged redirection. Over time, positions may drop, and the Ukrainian version of the homepage — if properly optimized — may take its place.
➤ Advantages of this approach: you comply with language localization requirements without losing all traffic. This gives you time to optimize the Ukrainian version while keeping the old homepage indexed.
Using a 302 redirect is a temporary solution that enables the transition to the Ukrainian version without losing previous traffic, but it is important to monitor page rankings and timely adapt content for long-term results.
3. Combining with other site changes
When making changes to your website, such as switching to a .ua domain or enabling HTTPS protocol, this is a good opportunity to update your language versions.
➤ Recommended setup: implement a 301 redirect from old URLs to new ones to preserve your SEO rankings.
➤ Advantages: switching to a .ua domain and HTTPS will improve SEO, and the language transition will cause minimal traffic loss.
These changes provide SEO benefits and allow effective integration of new language versions of the site.
Additional recommendations
To improve SEO optimization, it is important to set up the hreflang tag, which indicates to search engines which language version of a page to display based on the user’s region. It is also advisable to use automatic translation via the Google API, followed by manual text editing, to significantly reduce costs on professional translation.
Additionally, it is recommended to configure automatic loading of the Ukrainian version of the site for users from Ukraine, ensuring more convenient and faster access to the content.
📌 Conclusion
The law requires websites in Ukraine to have a Ukrainian-language version, which entails additional expenses but also opens up opportunities for traffic growth. A well-executed adaptation with SEO in mind will help avoid fines and attract a new Ukrainian-speaking audience. Work with specialists to navigate this process without losses and with an increase in traffic and leads!
💡 Need help?
The seomarket agency, with 15 years of experience, will find a winning strategy for implementing the Ukrainian version of your website. Submit a request for SEO promotion on our website!
