The Web's Second Language

What's next after English

[roddy]

What language is most commonly used on the internet, after English?

Roddy

[takagi]

According to AlltheWeb's index it is:

1. English
2. German
3. French

Language distribution in AlltheWeb [webmasterworld.com]

According to Google Zeitgeist, the rank order for the langauges used by their users is

1. English
2. German
3. Spanish

msg. 8 of 'Spanish Google News?' [webmasterworld.com]

So it looks German wins for now as the second language, but my guess is Chinese will soon become more and more important.

[roddy]

"my guess is Chinese will soon become more and more important"

I hope so - I live in Beijing, and any demand for SEO-savvy folk who can understand Chinese would suit me down to the ground . . .

Thanks for the info. What I'm thinking of doing is machine translating my site, then putting it online with a header saying 'This was done by a machine, sorry if its wrong. The original, which you can understand anyway because you are German and therefore speak fantastic English, is at httpetcetcetc

Roddy
PS Just wrote my first completely valid XHTML page. Do I get a prize anywhere?

[netguy]

as takagi outlined for the Internet:
English, French (France and Canada), German, and Spanish.

Obviously, it depends on what you are selling and who has the Internet connections, but the top 10 languages - and future markets to watch - are:

1. Mandarin
Number of speakers: 1 billion+

2. English
Number of speakers: 508 million

3. Hindustani (India)
Number of speakers: 497 million

4. Spanish
Number of speakers: 392 million

5. Russian
Number of speakers: 277 million

6. Arabic
Number of speakers: 246 million

7. Bengali (Bangladesh)
Number of speakers: 211 million

8. Portuguese
Number of speakers: 191 million

9. Malay-Indonesian
Number of speakers: 159 million

10. French
Number of speakers: 129 million

Source: [soyouwanna.com...]

[takagi]

"my guess is Chinese will soon become more and more important"

I hope so - I live in Beijing, and any demand for SEO-savvy folk who can understand Chinese would suit me down to the ground . . .

When it comes to internet connectivity, Chinese is already number 2 according to Global Internet Statistics (by Language) [global-reach.biz]:

English . . 35.6%
Chinese . . 12.2%
Japanse. . . 9.5%
Spanish. . . 8.0%
German. . . .7.0%

[Marcia]

In my part of the world it's Spanish, and there's a big market in the US, too. Here in Calif. if you call any gov't or utility offices they've got English and Spanish on the answering/menus/messages/recordings.

[shasan]

In Canada it's English and French. Kinda doubles your work if you don't do it smartly.

But internationally, it's English and German... Zee Juhmans are all over the web. :)

[henry0]

My native tong is French from FR; I am a US citizen and cannot write any content in FR
I have no clue on accent code :)
On a serious note
Aside Canada (FR speaking Side)
Most of North Africa and the rest of Africa do speak FR
Not to mention what used to be called Indochina, Tonkin etc...
So are statistics based on official country language or citizen tong spoken?