Going International for a content site.

The Do's and Dont's

[Dpeper]

So I am getting ready to start making my site international. Diffrent languages ect... Heres some questions.

Should I register a domain in each country and run a whole seperate site that is Identical?
Or should I use sub-domains? Or mabey just a folder www.widget.com/japan?

Thats my first question as I get started on this. Ill make a guide for WW on everything I learn on the way to doing this.

Any other insight or experiences you have had would be much appreciated.

[Mr Bo Jangles]

There are some good threads on this topic in European Search Engine Forum

[Dpeper]

I read through it just now and nothing really says what the best way is.

[bill]

We probably have better threads about this in the Asia and Pacific forum [webmasterworld.com] ;)

The suggested strategy is to get a local domain where you can. Some countries have very restrictive domain ownership policies, so it may not always be possible. If you cannot get a local domain try for local hosting. GoogleGuy has confirmed here that either local hosting or a local domain are sufficient for them to identify that a site is targeting a local market.

Then you want to make sure that your site is in the local language. Get the site professionally translated, and copy-written (2 separate things) into the local language. Make sure that you have the proper charset encoding for each language.

Finally you'll want to make sure that you can do business in all these languages. If someone writes you in Japanese for example with a problem, complaint or question, can you handle it? hint: On-line machine translations won't be sufficient.

[Dpeper]

Thanks for the hint about online translations, that was my plan.

Any suggestions? Services we can hire?
Donny

[bill]

You would probably want to look for someone in the local market to help you. I have heard that some people worked well recruiting exchange students from local universities. It really depends on how much handholding your product/service requires. If it's not too much maybe the translation company could handle it. (That might get expensive though)

[basenotes]

Slightly offtopic but

If you are using the same domain/brand for the International sites, make sure that it doesn't have any negative connotations in your target countries language. (ie, make sure your brand doesn't translate to Beetle-Dung)

[bill]

That's not off topic. It is one of the big reasons why I suggested getting the site translated, and then copywritten by native speakers. We've all heard the stories of poorly chosen brand names. ;)

[pmkpmk]

Mitsubishi Pajero...

One of our suppliers recently called one of his new products "Nova", wanting to give the connotation of "new". He didn't thought that this would translate for Spanish speaking persons to "No va", which means "doesn't work".

[Dpeper]

another good tip I wouldnt of even think to look in to translations of my site name and what they mean.