john5 - 7:32 pm on Oct 29, 2002 (gmt 0)

Hi everyone, you started an interesting discussion about multilingual websites. I have one in English and later added a German site. First I had both languages in one physical web site. I separated it later in two different physical web sites, sharing the same database. Each version has its own IP address and the TLD's are .com and .de. File names and directory structure of the two sites are identical. I am doing pretty well with Google with PR6 for the homepage and PR6 for about 20 more pages and with PR6 for the German homepage and PR5 for the pages on second-tier level. The German site fetches about 50% of the traffic of the .com site. Two separate versions give me a lot of possibilities for SEO I would not have otherwise. For instance I can target the English page for the keyword combination "firstname lastname" and the German twin site for "lastname firstname".

Muesli, I would not force anyone to use the German version. I discovered that my clients may find my German site first, but when it comes to do serious things on my web site like buying, most Germans prefer the English version.