If your multilanguage pages are generated by a CMS, it may be assembling the page using text in the preferred language based on a persistent variable, then you may be right. The spider may not find pages beyond your default language and only the first page of each language offered.
Some possible solutions: * Can you pre-publish your CMS pages as static HTML files?
* Put the language selector in every page of your site, eg. as a cfinclude in the header or menu area. This will provide a direct link to every page of every language.
Do not use a URL parameter to carry your persistent variable. It seems that search engines give a lower priority to links with URL query strings.
Finally, a few suggestions. Why not use a persistent cookie instead of a session variable (which is lost when the browser closes). That way the visitor's choice is remembered at the next visit.
Don't forget to put the language metatag and the correct character set metatag to handle the language eg.
<META HTTP-EQUIV="CONTENT-LANGUAGE" CONTENT="FR">
<META HTTP-EQUIV="CONTENT-TYPE" CONTENT="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
I'm a hand coder, I assume something like Dreamweaver will take care of all that Unicode stuff for you.
Interesting point to remember is that it's much easier to go to the top of the search engine heap in languages other than English because there's much less competition. So if you are targeting non-English speakers, a bit of optimisation goes a long way.
-- Regards: Ayudh
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Ryan Sabir wrote:
Greeting folks,
Here's an issue I'm sure someone has come across before...
We have a site that defaults to the English language, but by clicking a link, the user can view the content in a number of different languages. The users language preference is stored in a session variable.
From my understanding of how session variables work, if a searchengine were to follow a link to set the language, it would get the first page in the correct language, but subsequent pages would appear in English, because there is no cookie that identifies the Cold Fusion session.
Does anyone have a methodology that would allow a site built like this to be spidered by search engines in all languages?
thanks, bye!
-----------------------
Ryan Sabir
Newgency Pty Ltd
2a Broughton St
Paddington 2021
Sydney, Australia
Ph (02) 9331 2133
Fax (02) 9331 5199
Mobile: 0411 512 454
http://www.newgency.com/index.cfm?referer=rysig
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