8 replies to this topic

[TheGreatDane]

These days I am working on a customer site, that is going to be in Danish, English and German language (leaving the latter to a translater :doh: ). All tree versions will be accessed from www.customerdomain.dk.

Now, if I call up google I will be presented with a danish version and my search results will be holding danish pages only. I expect this is caused by the fact, that I am coming from a danish ISP??
But what if a gent from the US calls up google, searches for sites holding keywords like the ones my customers site is optimized for (the English version) - will he then be presented with the English pages under www.customerdomain.dk or is this out of the question, caused by the fact that these english pages are hosted under a .dk-domain? (we are of course assuming, that I have done the SEO right, so that the customer site SHOULD show up in the search results)

I guess my question boils down to this: Should pages in English language be hosted under "English domains" - like .com, .net, .org, .uk a.o. , or is this irrelevant?

[qwerty]

Should pages in English language be hosted under "English domains" - like .com, .net, .org, .uk a.o. , or is this irrelevant?

It's irrelevant, at least for the US version of Google. For the UK version, there is that "pages from the UK" option, but even then I don't think it's the default.

There are plenty of sites in English with non-English national TLDs, such as http://dance.efactory.de/

[compar]

It's irrelevant, at least for the US version of Google. For the UK version, there is that "pages from the UK" option, but even then I don't think it's the default.

There are plenty of sites in English with non-English national TLDs, such as http://dance.efactory.de/

To follow up on TheGreatDane's question -- do you have a real name that is shorter to type? -- won't Google always load the site in it's default language? I'm assume that the default language is Danish and that when you go to the site you can select a language.

In this case the home page -- index.html -- will be in Danish. So if you are searching in English or German or whatever what page do you get? Does Google take you to the first page of the language in which you search. If that is a case, and given the importance the SEs put on the home page, aren't the other language version of the site at some disadvantage to competitors whose site is only available in the language of the search?

That is a very convoluted question. I hope everyone can understand what I'm asking.

[BrianR]

We've touched on this topic on a couple of other threads recently.

My take on this is as follows: In each country, there is always a proportion of potential web buyers who will opt for sites from that country. Usually that's because they want someone local or because they have high national pride.

So, if the hosting costs are reasonable, would there be any SEO disadvantages to having three separate websites - .dk; .de; .com or .co.uk if you want to target just the UK market ??

Do you plan to fulfil all orders centrally from one country only - say Denmark? If so, then this would obviously undermine the local angle.

[TheGreatDane]

do you have a real name that is shorter to type?

Arrh - come on Bob...it's the CaPiTaL letters, you don't like, isn't is?
Well, my name is Per - is that short enough? (in fact there is a Danish name called "Ib", but NO I am not considering a name change)

Back to business:

I'm assume that the default language is Danish and that when you go to the site you can select a language.

Correct.

In this case the home page -- index.html -- will be in Danish. So if you are searching in English or German or whatever what page do you get?

Exactly - that's my question.

What I am wondering is, how do Google sort pages by language? If it is by TLD's, I guess all of my customers content (including the English and German version) will be in the "Danish bucket". But if the determination of the language is more intelligent like some evaluation of the text, it wouldn't probably matter?

Am I right?

Per

[Hellene]

Hi TheGreatDane,
I don't understand the complication. I also manage a multi-lingual site (English/German and some French for good measure).

The keywords are totally different and I don't expect a client searching using a German term - e.g. ethik - to find my English site that has 'ethics' instead.

Of course some keywords are the same but that doesn't happen too often.

The domain is irrelevant. It's surprising how many Internet users don't bother with the domain - so long as the content fits.

Or did I miss the point?

Cheerio,
Hellene

[qwerty]

What I am wondering is, how do Google sort pages by language?

It's possible they're looking for a tag like this:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Language" content="fr, en, es">

I found that on the Spanish language index page of a site I know of that has Spanish, French and English versions. It's based in Spain but has a .com address. Actually, I expected the tag on that particular page to say content="es", so I'm already a bit confused.

It's also possible Google is scanning the text and deciding what language it's in. If you look at this page, Xerox has a tool that guesses the language of the text one enters.

[BrianR]

Good point, Hellene.

BrianR

[TheGreatDane]

Hi Hellene ,
and welcome.

Or did I miss the point?

Well, IMO you are. Let me explain:
If you go to google, you can select, that you want only to see pages in English language in your search result. So IF google's way of determining, that a page is in English language is based on the TLD (.com, .net., org etc), then my customers pages in English language hosted under a .dk TLD, will NOT show up in the search results. Do you see what I mean?

qwerty:

Actually, I expected the tag on that particular page to say content="es", so I'm already a bit confused.

I understand your confusion.

It's also possible Google is scanning the text and deciding what language it's in. If you look at this page, Xerox has a tool that guesses the language of the text one enters.

This tool is pretty impressing. Even though I don't use any special Danish characters (like æ,ø,å) it still finds out, that I'm writing in Danish language!