there's lots of things u can do to ensure that the language is correctly identified and the right characterset it used
1. as sajan suggests, the setting locale is important. it also helps with time/date formats e.g. for php: setlocale(constant,location) (see also: http://www.w3schools.com/php/func_string_setlocale.asp) 2. define the page's _primary_ language of the page content in the header <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"; xml:lang="en" lang="en"> 3. define the language inline when it changes from one language to another within the content <SPAN id="msg1" class="info" lang="fr"> 4. use the uft-8 characterset and define it in the header through the doctype <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd";> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"; xml:lang="en" lang="en"> 5. use css to define the font to use for different languages. <p lang="zh" class="zh">(some Chinese text)</p> /* in the css */ [lang="zh"], * html .zh { font: 800 14pt/16.5pt "Li Sung", serif } viola! M :) ________________________________ From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sajan Franco [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, 14 June 2008 6:42 PM To: wsg@webstandardsgroup.org Subject: Re: [WSG] Multiple Language Domains Hi Paul, one way is to ask the user to choose a Locale on the landing page such en_EN or en_US , where en is the language chosen by the user and EN would represent the country. For instance in countries like Belgium and Switzerland, most of the websites ask the user to choose their locale before proceeding so that the website can serve content of their choice in the language they prefer. An example of this is http://www.nissan.ch/ or http://www.sunsilk.com where the user can chose the locale and proceed further. Since the translations are in different directories it is search engine friendly too. So when a user choose a locale he is taken to the respective homepage which serves the user in the language of his preference. But as far as usability is concerned I am not sure because both of cited examples feature flash, which I suppose is not that user friendly when you take accessibility into consideration. Warm Regards Sajan Franco On Sat, Jun 14, 2008 at 12:39 AM, Paul McCann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>> wrote: Hi Guys, I am currently in the middle of building a site which has to be bi-lingual. We have two domains for the site www.ourwales.org.uk<http://www.ourwales.org.uk> and www.cymruni.org.uk<http://www.cymruni.org.uk> I am looking for suggestions/help on how to handle the two domains. Currently ourwales is the prominant/main domain and the one to which the IP details of the site are set. We are then using an alias within apache to also point cymruni to the same site. So you see the same site when you visit, but have two different domains. Both these domains are advertised. I have a few worries though, currently both domains point to the english language version of the site, this will be changed so cymruni goes to the Welsh language side. Although the language is the same and its possible for people to flip between the two languages is it possible that google will see the site as duplicate content? Also we are having trouble getting the alias to append the lang=cy to it on first visit. My thought was to make the ourwales domain the prominant one, and set up a folder with a 301 redirect in it which says cymruni.org<http://cymruni.org> has moved permanantly to ourwales.org.uk/lang=cy<http://ourwales.org.uk/lang=cy> that way we have only one domain indexed. The reason for writing to this group is two fold 1, how does this affect usability and what is 'best practice' in this situation? 2, How have/would you implement a problem like this? Ideally we want to provide the smoothest and friendliest experience to both the user and SE whichever domain they use. thanks Paul ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED]<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ******************************************************************* ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ******************************************************************* ________________________________ NOTICE - This communication is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain confidential and/or privileged material. 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