Sharing a multi-language website in Google+ - internationalization

Question

I have a multi-language website which correctly detects the user language (the site's language changes accordingly), but can't be correctly shared in Google+.
The site exists in two languages, therefore I have set up two different sets of meta properties, one for each language:
English:
<link rel="canonical" href="http://en.perehana.com/"/>
<meta property="og:title" content="Perehana, the best way to find perfect gifts!"/>
<meta property="og:type" content="website"/>
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.perehana.com"/>
<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.perehana.com/img/large-icon.jpg"/>
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Perehana"/>
<meta property="og:description" content="No gift ideas for Christmas, birthdays, weddings, births or any other event? Perehana allows you to enter gift ideas and to reserve your family and friends' ideas before buying them."/>
<meta property="og:locale" content="en_GB"/>
<meta property="fb:app_id" content="242045389185230"/>
<meta property="og:locale:alternate" content="fr_FR"/>
<meta itemprop="name" content="Perehana, the best way to find perfect gifts!"/>
<meta itemprop="description" content="No gift ideas for Christmas, birthdays, weddings, births or any other event? Perehana allows you to enter gift ideas and to reserve your family and friends' ideas before buying them."/>
<meta itemprop="image" content="http://www.perehana.com/img/square_logo.png"/>
French:
<link rel="canonical" href="http://fr.perehana.com/"/>
<meta property="og:title" content="Perehana, le meilleur moyen de faire plaisir à coup sûr !"/>
<meta property="og:type" content="website"/>
<meta property="og:url" content="http://www.perehana.com"/>
<meta property="og:image" content="http://www.perehana.com/img/large-icon.jpg"/>
<meta property="og:site_name" content="Perehana"/>
<meta property="og:description" content="En manque d'idées de cadeaux à l'approche de Noël, des anniversaires, des mariages ou des naissances ? Perehana est un site qui vous permet de saisir des idées-cadeaux et de réserver celles de votre famille et de vos amis. Vous pouvez ensuite aller les acheter sans qu'ils le sachent."/>
<meta property="og:locale" content="fr_FR"/>
<meta property="fb:app_id" content="242045389185230"/>
<meta property="og:locale:alternate" content="en_GB"/>
<meta itemprop="name" content="Perehana, le meilleur moyen de faire plaisir à coup sûr !"/>
<meta itemprop="description" content="En manque d'idées de cadeaux à l'approche de Noël, des anniversaires, des mariages ou des naissances ? Perehana vous permet de saisir des idées-cadeaux et de réserver celles de votre famille et de vos amis. Vous pouvez ensuite aller les acheter sans qu'ils le sachent."/>
<meta itemprop="image" content="http://www.perehana.com/img/square_logo.png"/>
As you can see, the locales and alternates are correctly set.
This is how I call the G+ API (this is an example for a French user):
<div class="g-plusone" data-size="medium" data-href="http://www.perehana.com"></div>
<script type="text/javascript">
window.___gcfg = {
lang: 'fr'
};
(function() {
var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript';
po.async = true;
po.src = 'https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js';
var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s);
})();
</script>
According to the user's language, the correct properties are displayed.
The problem occurs when I want to share it via Google+, the title and description that Google automatically chooses for the site are in English, even if my G+ user account is in French... :-(
Thanks to anyone who can help!

Answer 1

I assume you're using the Accept-Language HTTP header to do this on your website.
The page fetcher used for sharing on to Google+ does not propagate any of the HTTP headers from the user who initiated the action, so your website will fall back to whatever the default language is.
You can work around this by using GET parameters to set the language. If you are sharing from the +1 button, share button or share link you can then set the current language into the target url parameter, data-href, for that plugin.
It looks like you've already filed a feature request for this in the Google+ issue tracker. If it wasn't you, star the issue to receive update notifications.