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I have a website, @ present i am targeting towards the US market. Now i am getting a good response with the optimization bring done for that website.
Proceeding further i would like to target to the world market with their own language displayed in my website. While thinking about this i have got an idea with the single domain.
Note: I am not interested in creating sub directory or sub domain for multi lingual website content
My idea goes here...
i.e if a person from other countries (e.g. France) visits my website i change the content formatted with French language and at the same time if a person from USA to my website i will display the content in english.
The thing is i will collect the IP address for each country and doing some programming with that i can find the person's country and i can further proceed in changing the content.
Will this be a good idea for targeting world market. Also will there be any point being penalized by SE's if i do so for my website.
Looking forward for your views...
Will this be a good idea for targeting world market.
Another issue- what language would you show for an IP in Quebec (Canada) or Switzerland or some other country/locale with multiple languages?
[edited by: LifeinAsia at 3:44 pm (utc) on April 28, 2009]
Personally, I would have gone with separate sites for different markets especially when SE's are giving more weights to localization.
Also the the thing is if use options for selection the language then there is no possibility in targeting to the local audience with their own language, because primarily i have website with english content. Until the user selects the other language content will not be shown to users and to the search engines.
In this case how can i provide options to the users to choose the language.
It good idea of using separate domain for each language. But the thing here if i go with a new domain, i have compete with the great legends. It will take so long time to get ranked for the most keywords.
But my website has around 4000 back links. So if i go with this there will not be much work in bringing ranking for the keywords i think so.
But anyhow i have to use javascript to select from drop down menu.
If you CHOOSE to have a JavaScript drop-down menu for selecting the language, I recommend that you also have text links to the other language versions, at least on the index page.
You can also submit sitemaps to Google and other major search engines with the other language pages, which may or may not speed up the indexing process.
Also note that you will have indexing problems if you rely on cookies to determine which language to use. So if you are not using different filenames (e.g., page-en.html, page-sp.html, etc.) or URL parameters (e.g., page.php?language=English, page.php?language=Spanish, etc.), you'll probably have a hard time getting the other language content indexed.
Google has increased the weight given to the local domains for ranking in the respective local SE (like Google.fr)
I would say that it would be difficult for a .com domain hosted in US to rank in google.fr.
IMO Google gives preference as follows in local results:
TLD >> Hosting Company location >> Language and other content.
I too know that major search engines give more weight for the local domains (Google.fr). But if i go with a new domain with the local domain then i have to start promoting from the beginning. This will take so long time for ranking for the keywords in local search engines. Also the domain i have now have around 4000 backlinks from various country websites. So if i go with the present website, i can rank well in all the local search engines for which i built my website in short span of time (say around 6 months of time).
@ LifeinAsia
I think the idea you have given works fine in some way for my expectations.
I want to know is there any other way to built my website apart from using JavaScript drop down menu for other languages. Because why i am asking this is i want my website to more search engine friendly and i do not want to give a single point of my website not being indexed in search engines.
I would say that it would be difficult for a .com domain hosted in US to rank in google.fr.
Google returned "did you mean aluminium foil" ..
Followed by all the first page results ..
First was wikipedia in english ( for just the word aluminium )..
-telling me it was also spelt aluminum in the USA ( obviously I knew this and had avoided this spelling so as to hopefully not have to wade through pages of results from the US..
( however in googles opinion I could not neither spell "aluminium" ..nor "fil" .so first they point me at a site which teaches me alternative ( and in their eyes more correct ) spellings and then they serve me the next four spots which they have adjusted to take into account what they consider to be illiteracy ..
Thus the next 4 spots were ..all dot coms ..all in english ..all US companies based in the USA ..
There were 2 English language B2B directories in the 6 to 10 spots ..and 3 french sites that mentioned aluminium fil ( one of which was a french handicrafts forum ..wherein a member was asking for a cheap supplier of 1 or 2 metres to make jewelery ! )..in the results returned from US sites the snippets included the word foil bolded ..even though it was not in my search terms !..and aluminium was in each snippet but actually written aluminum in one of them .
Yes Google uses geotargetting ( far more than I would wish )..however it is applied inconsistantly ..
To the OP..
What works best for visitors ( be they human or se-bots.. google et al )is ..
example.com/products.htm ( for english speakers )
example.com/produits.htm ( for french speakers )
etc etc ..
All text on pages for english audiences to be in english ..( and all titles ,and everything else that lives in meta tags ) etc
All text for french audiences to be in french .. and all titles ,and everything else that lives in meta tags ) etc
1.Let them switch if they want to between languages either by clicking on icons of their respective countries flags ( all flags are on all pages and each links to it's own language version of that precise page ) ..or
2.On each page make a text link to each other language version of that page ..ie on english pages to link to the french version you would link to the french version via the word "français" in a nav bar ..and from french pages to the english ones via the word "english" ..always the link text to be in the language of the destination page ..
Method 1 is simpler and takes less space ..and is more immediately identifiable ..but either will work ..more languages just means slightly more work to make your nav bars ..use SSI's.
Oh and dont SEO each language page the same ..a keyword or phrase may well be literally translatable ..doesn't mean thats what will pay off in another language if they aren't searching for the exact dictionary translation ..
Which is why autotrans is useless ..
I want to know is there any other way to built my website apart from using JavaScript drop down menu for other languages.
That goes for all the links to your web site as well. Although Google has gotten better about following links in JavaScript, not all search engines do. And not all users have JavaScript enabled.
At a minimum, have a text link on your home page to a sitemap page. On the sitemap page, have text links to all your other pages, or at least your main pages. Make sure that every single page is linked by at least 1 text link from somewhere else on your site (the more the better).
Thanks for the valuable information given.
@ LifeinAsia
Finally i have got solution for my problem. With that i can carry on to make my website with multiple language.
