Questions about setting up a site for chinese audience

several specific questions that i just don't know where to start on

[gazraa]

Here's the situation for a project I have to do:

UK based company with static html website hosted in the UK. Now has business links with China and wants one section of site available in Chinese.

I have got the transalations done, but still need to convert that into web pages.

My questions that I really am stuck on are:

1. Do I need to use a chinese top level domain? Currently they use a .co.uk

2. Should the chinese site be hosted in the UK? Will that have any access restrictions for the Chinese audience or will it have adverse effect on SEO?

3. Can I do any sort of reliable auto redirection by detecting where the user is from via IP or another method? Or is a link on the homepage and a cookie to retain choice a better idea?

4. With the translations, do I need to know what type of chinese it is, and will this effect the HTML doctype or whatever?

5. I'm using dreamweaver to build the pages and found this: [macromedia.com...] . Is this going to be relevant and helpful?

This project is looming fast so I need to get cracking on it so any advice is most welcomed.

[txbakers]

4. With the translations, do I need to know what type of chinese it is, and will this effect the HTML doctype or whatever?

I can't help with the others, but can help with this one.

There are two main types of Chinese - Traditional as used in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and Simplified as used in the mainland. The traditional people sometimes refer to the simplified as Communist Chinese.

You can specify the doctype for each of the two styles in your headers.

I used the Big5 for traditional: <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=big5">

I forgoet the one for simplified

[redstorm]

Now, my feedback:
1.Domain name. Since the cost of Chinese domain is not much, why not choose one?
2. Hosting. There are many barriers to host a website in China, so you'd better host it in UK. But someone said baidu prefer website hosted in China in its search result. I am not sure of this.
3. Chinese characters. From what you said (your customer is doing business with Mainland China),it must be written in simplified Chinese(i can help you check it if necessary).
you can set the code like this: meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=gb2312"

[gazraa]

thanks txbakers and redstorm

conflicting thoughts on the content type but some useful info none the less.

I have the chinese translations but obviously i can't tell what it's written in so hopefully it is the right thing. My client paid to have this done so it was not under my control.

I also have to convert all the site graphics that have text on them to the chinese equivalent, but I don't see that as being a major issue. I take it I will need to set my windows pc up to accept chinese and get the appropriate fonts installed too?