show_menu2 - suggestion for improvement

[FrankH]

So from a technical point of view, it doesn't matter in what language your content is written.

It depends how sophisticated your web site is made 
For instance, you can take the language setting to automagically set the language meta tag in your template.

Or you could do things like I've written about here
(Beware, the link goes to a german page, but you probably might land on the english version if your browser settings prefer english over german.)

[Ruud]

RSJ ( really stupid joke)

It was not intended as a joke, more as a "light weight" way of telling that there is no relation between the language your content is written, and the technical language setting of a page.

It happens all the time that someone tries to create new pages when his user account was set to a different language as the website language. By default a new (root level) page will be created in that language, causing these kind of problems.

So from a technical point of view, it doesn't matter in what language your content is written.

R

[Ruud]

but please tell me the sense of the Language-option in the WB Backend, if you can not use it in relation to SEO?

Ok, I will try to explain a bit more..

First, setting the language is important to have pages like Login/Forgot/Search/etc.. be displayed in the correct language.

In a multilanguage site you will normally have your pages structured in language "starting points".
By adding some (static) links to switch between languages you can create links that Google finds OK.
i.e.  <a href=/en/home?lang=EN>English</a> <a href=/de/home?lang=DE>Deutch</a>
Adding the lang parameter is crucial here, otherwise WB will do it for you using the redirect.

If you allow your user to switch between languages within one structure (not recommended), WB needs to set the correct language for that session.
So when your user is viewing an English page, and the user goes to a German page without the correct language parameter, WB uses a redirect to the same page including the language parameter to switch the session language..

The solutions:

In a situation like the first post in this thread, where you are on a German site, but some pages are in English (because there is no German content maybe), just leave the page setting to German. It will remain a german site after all.

In a situation where you want to have a real English and German and Swahili site, create the correct structure (and method for switching languages) as explained in the WB help pages, and use the page language setting to make WB display the core pages (Login/search/etc..) in the correct language too.

R

[FrankH]

Just make sure all the pages are in the same language.
Not the content (nobody cares ), but in the settings of the pages, set all languages the same.

R

RSJ ( really stupid joke)

[Bastian]

Just make sure all the pages are in the same language.
Not the content (nobody cares ), but in the settings of the pages, set all languages the same.

R

thanks Ruud for your ? Solution ? wich i allready know 

but please tell me the sense of the Language-option in the WB Backend, if you can not use it in relation to SEO?

Cheers Basti

[Ruud]

Just make sure all the pages are in the same language.
Not the content (nobody cares ), but in the settings of the pages, set all languages the same.

R

[Bastian]

hi FrankH

i got the same proplem with google webmaster-tools

Redirect-Error, page not visited

does anybody know, how to remove the ".....?lang=DE" from the link?
I allready switch off the "page-language" in site-options

Cheers Basti

[FrankH]

I just used the W3C Link Checker on a site with German language as default, but where some pages are in English language.
For each link to an english page, I get the following warning:

Line: 60 http://www.xxx.php redirected to http://www.xxx.php?lang=EN
Status: 302 -> 200 OK
This is a temporary redirect. Update the link if you believe it makes sense, or leave it as is.

Just a suggestion:
When WB thinks it is necessary to redirect because of the page settings (I do not know what the exact reason for this redirect is) it would be great when show_menu2 would already deliver the correct link (with the language part appended)