Redirect homepage to specific folder

[terrybarnes]

I have a site where I will eventually have a few language versions of the same site. Therefore what I was thinking was to have folders at root for each language eg "english", "french" etc and so when a visitor enters the site they will be auto redirected to the English folder.

Is it okay to set up a redirect on the sites index page? If so should I set this up as a 301 redirect or is there a better way.

Thanks in advance for any help.

[jdMorgan]

This is primarily a usability and SEO question. In this forum, we can help you do redirects and rewrites, etc., but if you are still researching what to do, your questions will likely get more attention in the search engine forums.

I will make a few suggestions, though; First, don't auto-redirect; Englishmen visiting Paris and Frenchmen staying London will not appreciate it. Using the requesting IP address or sniffing the browser language settings often results in incorrect assumptions about the actual user's language. Instead, let the user select the language manually, as with the "row of little flags" or clickable world maps seen on major international sites.

Second, this is a perfect application for country-specific domains if you can afford and arrange to get them. If not, then consider language-based subdomains, which are a neat way to have multiple sites based on languages hosted on the same base domain. Using a language-based subdirectories is also OK, but again, don't auto-redirect to these "alternate sites" -- let the use choose. This also gets rid of major concerns about how search engines' requests will be handled -- They will simply follow the same language-selection links as the users.

I'm sure you can get some more (and different) ideas and opinions in the search engine forums.

JIm

[g1smd]

Is the French stuff aimed at France and/or Canada, and the English at the UK and/or US and/or Oz? If so, then use TLDs for each site.

I concur on the 'do not auto-redirect' advice.