Multilingual websites and internal link structure

[Gert Leroy]

A lot allready has been said about how to set up a multilingual website. Some prefer a country-specific domain for each individual language (domain.pt, domain.nl, ...), others stick to just 1 domain (domain.com) and put each different language behind a separate language-directory (domain.com/pt, domain.com/nl, ...)

Let’s not get into that discussion again.
I choose to stick to 1 domain and use separate language-directories. Let’s talk about that.


• Each language needs a specific link-campaign.
The Portuguese version needs links from portuguese sites pointing to www.domain.com/pt/ and
the Dutch version needs links from dutch sites pointing to www.domain.com/nl/

• www.domain.com/pt will pass its linkpop to the rest of the portuguese pages, and
• www.domain.com/nl will pass its linkpop to the rest of the dutch pages ..

Question:
Should there be an internal link structure between the 2 languages so linkpop can be exchanged between them?
Or is it better keeping these versions separated from each other (no link-structure between them) since they both have their own link-campaign?

[TrafficProducer]

structure between the 2 languages

I would, for users, (not for search engines.

Maybe add an image of a Flag for each, and each other Language.

After all you will sometimes get Visitors from the incorrect language.

Online web Translation is not as good as real life Translation

No Facts only my personal choice.

[Gert Leroy]

Originally Posted by TrafficProducer

Maybe add an image of a Flag for each..

Off course, but there are ways to do this with or without passing linkpop...

[Arimar]

It's better to use a separate domain for each language and the on line translators are terrible. We have been doing multilingual sites since 1997 and have experimented with one domain etc. The only way to really get a rating for each language is by using a separate domain and we believe a separate IP as well. We currently serve over 500 clients with bi or multilingual pages and all are well rated and whats more important they do the job for the clients. Each site is designed with the visitors in mind. Example: www.andes.net is in spanish and ww.andesholidays.com is in english. Basically the same material but different format. We have some sites that are in spanish, german and english and others with italian and french. See www.posada-alemania.com for a trilingual setup.
R.C. Rebeck
Arimar inc.

[mreichard@idatatechnologi]

I'd link between the two, but I'd avoid flags for the reasons you probably know... is Portuguese the Brazilian or Portugal flag? Is Taiwan a country, or a part of the PRC?

One thing we do a lot with a site that I work on for a client is to cross link where it makes sense --- like to an article that is only available in the other language, usually with a note after the link e.g. something like "Catálogo(inglés)". Don't know if this will work for you --- is it common for people to speak both Dutch and Portuguese?

HTH,
Mark

[Orion]

Some great ideas ~[busy takin' notes]

One thing we did with one site was separate them, and using javaScript dropdowns (no flag controversy; however on that note, Brazilians know the Portuguese flag as Canadians know the UK and US flags for our language =o) standard is to use the flag of the mother country, we use the french flag here in Canada for our Quebequois and Habitant speaking Canucks) javaScript wasn't indexible then though it is now by many of the larger engines.

Use your sitemap page to interlink them for the engines that can't read the javaScript drop downs.

[Webnauts]

Gert, if I got your question right, I would suggest adding in your document headers for example something like this:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="spanish.html"> - specifies a Spanish translation
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="pt" href="portugeese.html"> - specifies a Potugeese translation
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="german.html"> - specifies a German translation
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="gr" href="greek.html"> - specifies a Greek translation

e.t.c

More about, see here: http://www.richinstyle.com/guides/essential24.html

[Orion]

Thank you Webnauts!

I haven't delved into the <link> tag that far yet. That is really cool piece of code, I never knew it existed.

and (I did a bit of research at http://www.w3schools.com) it's fully valid in xhtml strict and transitional and from what I can see it appears the search engines will follow it also!

I love it! I'm like a kid in a candy store when I find a new piece of code like this.

Very nice!

[Webnauts]

Orion you can be sure that it works. We already have tested it.

Cool that you liked that. :)

[goldschadt]

Hello

I am new in this forum, but this topic just hit my lane.

Several ways to work with one domain xxx.com.

1) one would just lunk to several parallel sites (javascript) not very so good! (Pardon my french)Search Engine do not like javascript.

2) other solution flags and go with online machine translation. Not very good because machine translation requires a lot of humor from the user. However some languages might work: you can have en english text and translate into Chinese, that will make it 60-80% correct. The chinese will understand it. But yiou cannot translate the other way. English language have different grammer, prepositions, tense etc. Chinese, Japanese language have not.

3) Manual translation. Get a powerfull CMS that support multilingual, that will keep track of what has been translated on what not. I use Joomla CMS. This is the best soution, translators may sit in different counties and fill in their language translation part online and with immediate publishing..

Note: Beijing 2008 is coming up! Have your site ready in asian languages, listed on asian searchengines etc. - AND/AND/AND - be aware of encoding problems!!! Simplified Chinese - used in mainland China - GB2312 - and Trad. Chinese uesed in Taiwan - Big5. There are huge encoding problems that has not been solved yet. But most encoding are now switching to Utf-8, which has handle the Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Russian languages much better.

I am a teacher and have some demo sites which you can locate at http://goldschadt.com - your multilingual web portal builder. Site is in progress - your recommendations to improve will be greatly apprciated. I might want to go into business!

Thanx

Poul

[goldschadt]

Some of my sites will automatically read the users keyboard setting (da, en, de etc.) and direct the user to that preferred language.

Poul

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by goldschadt

I am a teacher and have some demo sites which you can locate at http://goldschadt.com - your multilingual web portal builder. Site is in progress - your recommendations to improve will be greatly apprciated. I might want to go into business!

Poul, please start a new thread if you need any help.
We had that discussion with Gert, elsewhere, as he also kindly mentioned starting the thread. :)

[goldschadt]

I sorry my aim were to respond to this quistion

Question:
Should there be an internal link structure between the 2 languages so linkpop can be exchanged between them?
Or is it better keeping these versions separated from each other (no link-structure between them) since they both have their own link-campaign?

And my intention were to point to Joomla CMS and the Joomfish multilingual translation module and some of the problems related to this when you deal with languages such as Simp.Chinese and Japanese. So sorry!

Poul

[Webnauts]

No problem Poul. And by the way, welcome aboard. :)

And now from my point of view, it is not an issue of link popularity in the first place. Is is a pure accessibility and usability issue. And that is semantically the right way to go too.

If you do not want to share link popularity within your own pages, you could use the link attribute rel="nofollow", but I don't see a reason why you should do that. If you have a reason, please explain.

[Webnauts]

I have previously forgotten to add this link too: http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/use-links

[Webnauts]

Poul I forgot to mention that the rel="nofollow" means "I don't vote for this link" but it won't prevent the crawling/addition of the page.

[goldschadt]

Using the setup I explained - yes it works fine.

The question now is will the search engine read the original english text or the translated one?

In the early days of internet 75% of internet searched were done in english, individual web sites were read by english robots.

Today - however - only 25% of searched are done in english, the rest in spanish, chinese etc.

Chinese people do do searches in english, but in their own language. I need to get my business registered in both languages (and others) and is the setup provided by Joomla capable to secure that?

My question is then: will Google (US) only read the english version, will Google (China) read the chinese one? - using the Joomla/joomfish setup. And how can I test that this is so and get rating/pagerank etc.

Poul

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by goldschadt

The question now is will the search engine read the original english text or the translated one?

What is the big deal about that?

Originally Posted by goldschadt

I need to get my business registered in both languages (and others) and is the setup provided by Joomla capable to secure that?

Well you got me here. I have no idea, as I never did anything with Joomla. I use a template system called "Smarty".

Originally Posted by goldschadt

My question is then: will Google (US) only read the english version, will Google (China) read the chinese one? - using the Joomla/joomfish setup.

If you try a local search in the local language, you should mainly get the results of that country and language. So why do you bother?

Would you appreciate searching with google an English term and get Chineese sites for a result? Or didn't I get your question here?

Originally Posted by goldschadt

And how can I test that this is so and get rating/pagerank etc.

Test it? I guess you have a long way to go. You have to setup everything up, and watch what happens within the next 6 months. :)

[goldschadt]

I might not explain myself well:

I chinese person will use Google (China) and do searces using chinese characters (chinese keywords)! They will never find you if you are listed on Google (US)-(english keywords).

So I need to be listed in both versions so that my company (US) also can be found by a chinese user, doing searches using chinese characters.

So when I have a multilingual site will english bots read my english version and chinese bots the chinese translation of my site i.e. the chinese keywords.

[goldschadt]

You wrote:

Test it? I guess you have a long way to go. You have to setup everything up, and watch what happens within the next 6 months. :)

I have had the Joomla/Joomfish combination up for 6 months allready - in demo mode (not all parts fully translated).

I rank no uno on Google (US) for keyword "multilinmgual web portals" - how can I test my place on Google (China)?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by goldschadt

So when I have a multilingual site will english bots read my english version and chinese bots the chinese translation of my site i.e. the chinese keywords.

Yes!

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by goldschadt

I rank no uno on Google (US) for keyword "multilinmgual web portals" - how can I test my place on Google (China)?

For the US English keyword in Google U.S. and for the Chinese keyword Google China.

[goldschadt]

Yes, I can test Google (US) with my keyboard (en), but I have no way of testing the Google (China) - not being inside China, using a Chinese keyboard and not being able to write Chinese characters? - or is there a way?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by goldschadt

Yes, I can test Google (US) with my keyboard (en), but I have no way of testing the Google (China) - not being inside China, using a Chinese keyboard and not being able to write Chinese characters? - or is there a way?

Or you should find someone in China who can help you, or do that yourself here: http://www.google.com/intl/zh-CN/

So I hope from now on that someone else can help you further.

Good luck Poul.

[goldschadt]

Thanx for your time. Now I know how to proceed...

[TrafficProducer]

Page Rank in China, etc. Maybe this will help :-

Live Pagerank. Checks your Google PageRank® on multiple Google Data Centres.

More Page Rank tools

[Gert Leroy]

Originally Posted by webnauts

I would suggest adding in your document headers for example something like this:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="spanish.html"> - specifies a Spanish translation
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="pt" href="portugeese.html"> - specifies a Potugeese translation
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="german.html"> - specifies a German translation
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="gr" href="greek.html"> - specifies a Greek translation

thanks webnauts for the advice !

Let's take this thread to a specific example:
http://www.salsabar.com.br/ - portuguese version, and
http://www.salsabar.com.br/en/ - english version

The header of index.asp portuguese version goes as follows:

DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<title>Salsa Bar Natal RN</title>
<META Name="keywords" Content="salsa bar natal brasil">
<META Name="description" Content="Salsa, eventos, gastronomia e bebidas no Salsa Bar mais traditional de Ponta Negra, Natal, Brasil !">
<meta name="language" content="pt">
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<link href="css.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css">
<script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" SRC="alljavascripts.js"></script>
</head>

How would you change this complete header to get the best out of (multilingual) SEO?

Additional question:
I don't understand what is meant by a "starting page":
<LINK rel="start" href="contents.html"> - specifies a starting page; useful for search engines
What is a starting page and why should you specify it?


Note: please don't comment the bad quality of pictures and the even more poorly written english :(

[getmea]

Gert, Seu site e muito bom! I am also very interested in multi-lingual sites and would like to thank you for bringing the topic up. Boa sorte!

[Webnauts]

OK Gert. Here we go:

1. Add in your Portgueese page header: <link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://www.salsabar.com.br/en/">

2. Add in your English page header: <link rel="alternate" hreflang="pt" href="http://www.salsabar.com.br/">

3. Get rid of this meta tag <meta name="language" content="pt"> in your Portgueese page header and add the language in your <html> tags like this:
<html="pt">.

4. Get rid of this meta tag <meta name="language" content="en"> in your English page header and meta tag <meta name="language" content="pt"> in your Portuguese page header, adding the languages in your <html> tags like this:
<html="en"> for English and <html lang="pt"> for Portuguese.

About the start tag, ignore it. It is not necessary.

Off-topic if you don't mind:
1. Many engines consider the use of "tiny text" loaded with keywords to be spamming. You're using a font size under the default size of 3. Your tiny text may be a copyright notice at the very bottom of the page, or even your contact information. If so, that's fine. Have a closer look at that.

2. Place your JavaScripts or other scripts in a separate file to avoid ranking problems. If not possible, at least, move the JavaScript to
the bottom of the page.

3. Get rid of the meta tag <meta name="robots" content="index,follow"> and use robots.txt instead.

General advise: Try to keep the head of your documents so small as possible.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Gert Leroy

Note: please don't comment the bad quality of pictures and the even more poorly written english :(

I am not a graphic designer, and I suppose that my English is not better than yours, so no need to worry Gert. LOL

[Gert Leroy]

Originally Posted by webnauts

I am not a graphic designer, and I suppose that my English is not better than yours, so no need to worry Gert. LOL

well.. i only start worrying when people think the bad english is my responsability, which it is not. i consider good copywriting as extremely important, and translations should always be done by native speakers. In this particular case, the client decided differently..

Thanks webnauts, i am taking your advice into consideration.

[Webnauts]

Great Gert. Keep me up to date, so I can look into further issues if you don't mind. :)

[kneelsit]

Thanks so much webnauts and others for your comments on this topic as I am right now having 2 pages from my site translated into Spanish, French and Chinese. Consequently I have studied the Qs and As on this topic as diligently as possible.

My programmer asked me the Q. as to whether I wanted to go the route of setting up language-specific domains as well as having them hosted on French Spanish servers as well, or whether to use subdomains on our current Australian site. I opted to have the translations done as subdomains in the interests of costs and maintaining control as we are only a small family based company.

I gather from what has been said that my translated pages WILL be picked up by the various other SEs from China etc. but I should not expect to get any real increase in ranking because of these changes.

In short although I am No.1 on Yahoo for my 2 major keywords and No.2 and 5 on Google. I should not expect to get anything like that sort of ranking from the major foreign language SEs. Is this correct?

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by kneelsit

In short although I am No.1 on Yahoo for my 2 major keywords and No.2 and 5 on Google. I should not expect to get anything like that sort of ranking from the major foreign language SEs. Is this correct?

It depends on many other factors too.

[venividi]

Originally Posted by kneelsit

In short although I am No.1 on Yahoo for my 2 major keywords and No.2 and 5 on Google. I should not expect to get anything like that sort of ranking from the major foreign language SEs. Is this correct?

Yes. I have some experience in multilingual sites (I am a translator turned webmaster some years ago). 99% of my sites are multilingual up to 12 - 18 languages. I confirm that Google and other SE's treat each language section as if it were an independent site whether I use the same domain or not. And yes, I set up links from every page to every language.

Valeria

[Gert Leroy]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

Keep me up to date, so I can look into further issues if you don't mind. :)

So, i implemented the following changes:

Originally Posted by Webnauts

1. Add in your Portgueese page header: <link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="http://www.salsabar.com.br/en/">

2. Add in your English page header: <link rel="alternate" hreflang="pt" href="http://www.salsabar.com.br/">

3. Get rid of this meta tag <meta name="language" content="pt"> in your Portgueese page header and add the language in your <html> tags like this:
<html="pt">.

4. Get rid of this meta tag <meta name="language" content="en"> in your English page header and meta tag <meta name="language" content="pt"> in your Portuguese page header, adding the languages in your <html> tags like this:
<html="en"> for English and <html lang="pt"> for Portuguese.

Off-topic if you don't mind:

Originally Posted by Webnauts

1. Many engines consider the use of "tiny text" loaded with keywords to be spamming. You're using a font size under the default size of 3. Your tiny text may be a copyright notice at the very bottom of the page, or even your contact information. If so, that's fine. Have a closer look at that.

I would be seriously surprised if the size of the fonts used in this specific site (www.salsabar.com.br/en) would cause any problem..

Originally Posted by Webnauts

3. Get rid of the meta tag <meta name="robots" content="index,follow"> and use robots.txt instead.

Done.


Now i'm waiting to see result ;o) This will probably take long, and the result of these specific changes is allmost impossible to mesure, also because the linkcampaign for the english version is finished, and results will be seriously influenced be the increasing number of IBL's.

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by Gert Leroy

I would be seriously surprised if the size of the fonts used in this specific site (www.salsabar.com.br/en) would cause any problem..

I am not sure either if you will be flagged, as I don't have the complete algos in my favorites. :)

[Webnauts]

Gert, would you like to share with us the results from this thread?