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Posted by Jukka K. Korpela on 04/12/07 07:51
Scripsit Gérard Talbot:
>> First, there is only one index.html - which language should I use
>> here? Logic dictates that english is more popular than dutch, yet
>> most of my visitors will be dutch.
>
> Then choose dutch as the language to use for your index.html page.
It's not clear at all that this would be the best choice. If 51 % of users
speak English and no Dutch whereas 49 % speak Dutch as their native language
and can read English rather fluently, which choice will cause more trouble?
> On it, add a "English" or "English translation" link, clearly visible,
> easily scannable, spottable, which will link to the English webpage,
> index-en.html webpage.
But not with such a link text.
> Something like:
>
> <a hreflang="en" lang="en" href="index-en.html">English
> translation</a>
If that's the only text in English on a page otherwise in Dutch, what would
a casual visitor get from it? Well, probably you get some idea of Dutch
words if you know English, but consider a more striking example: a page
entirely in Chinese but with the link "English translation". People who know
no Chinese would have absolutely no idea of what the site is about, except
if they guess from the images or the URL (and we often guess very wrong).
> Also, use <link> to indicate alternate content in other language.
>
> <link rel="alternate" type="text/html" lang="en" hreflang="en"
> title="[Website title in English]">
Fine, though of fairly limited practical usefulness due to lack of support
on IE and poor support on other browsers.
You would put the web site title in English into the normally invisible
attribute of a normally invisible element. It should be put into the visible
content of the document. You might add an explanation like "English version"
in one or more languages if you like, but the semantically meaningful link
name is the important thing.
> Use proper/best meta-tags (for searchability, best indexation by
> search engines)
Meta tags (with name="keywords" or name="content") have been ignored or
treated as comparable to normal text only by major search engines for years.
They are almost useless, sometimes worse (e.g., if you use Dutch keywords on
a page that is actually in English, thereby misleading people and taking the
risk of getting punished for keyword spamming).
You should formulate the _textual content_ properly. This includes using one
language on one page, and using it consistently. The principle of linking to
the other language versions by their page titles in the respective language
actually violates this consistency, but that's unavoidable and normally not
very serious. A few words in an another language won't confuse searches too
much.
--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
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