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Re: Bilingual pages and meta tags. From Tim Janes at Mirokudou on 7 Jan '01 replying to Re: Bilingual pages and meta tags. posted by Chris and Yuko >>I need to find out how to set up a bilingual site using metas etc. >>The site is in both Japanese and English. How do I go about letting people of both languages find the site using search engines? I now have a cover page which is nearly all graphic I am aware that this is a bad situation. I also need some advice on how to set up this. I want the viewer to be able to directly access the page in the choice of languages. If anyone out there has some advice I would be most indebted to you. >>Thanks, >>Tim > >The way I would have personally set up the site would be in two directories instead of lumped in the same folder: > >http://www.mirokudou.com/ - base directory for English speaking customers (submit that only to the English Search engines): > >http://www.mirokudou.com/japanese/ (Submit that only to the Japanese Search Engines. Both URLS will lead to the main page of the corresponding language. > >The problem I see with having all the pages in your base directory (ie all in the same folder) is that deep search engines might list all your pages, making it a little confusing for a Nihonjin to find an English page from your site that may not be the main page and ditto for an English speaker finding a Japanese page. > >It'll work out better the way I mentioned earlier as many Japanese search engines wont index english pages anyway. > >BTW, how did you write the Japanese text? I have a program called "Unitype" that allows me to type Japanese, but certain versions of Netscape don't support it. Thank You for you responce, About the Japanese text: I am lucky because that part of it I leave up to a Japanese staff member. It was done using a Japanese OS. I have searched for a good program for my machine with little or no luck. If I do find something that works well and does'nt cost as much as a small tropical island I'll let you know. Thanks again for your advice, Tim Janes

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>>>I need to find out how to set up a bilingual site using metas etc. >>>The site is in both Japanese and English. How do I go about letting people of both languages find the site using search engines? I now have a cover page which is nearly all graphic I am aware that this is a bad situation. I also need some advice on how to set up this. I want the viewer to be able to directly access the page in the choice of languages. If anyone out there has some advice I would be most indebted to you. >>>Thanks, >>>Tim >> >>The way I would have personally set up the site would be in two directories instead of lumped in the same folder: >> >>http://www.mirokudou.com/ - base directory for English speaking customers (submit that only to the English Search engines): >> >>http://www.mirokudou.com/japanese/ (Submit that only to the Japanese Search Engines. Both URLS will lead to the main page of the corresponding language. >> >>The problem I see with having all the pages in your base directory (ie all in the same folder) is that deep search engines might list all your pages, making it a little confusing for a Nihonjin to find an English page from your site that may not be the main page and ditto for an English speaker finding a Japanese page. >> >>It'll work out better the way I mentioned earlier as many Japanese search engines wont index english pages anyway. >> >>BTW, how did you write the Japanese text? I have a program called "Unitype" that allows me to type Japanese, but certain versions of Netscape don't support it. > >Thank You for you responce, > >About the Japanese text: I am lucky because that part of it I leave up to a Japanese staff member. It was done using a Japanese OS. >I have searched for a good program for my machine with little or no luck. If I do find something that works well and does'nt cost as much as a small tropical island I'll let you know. >Thanks again for your advice, > >Tim Janes