You'll be writing some pretty complex url rewriting in order for the SEO URL's to work, since a nodename can't be used anymore for determining what page/language version to render...
personally, i don't like the 1:1 idea at all. what are the downsides of having a subsite per language?
- a little bit more difficult to manage for content editors
- it's more complex to create "fast language switching" (= in the front-end, change your browsing language and being redirected to the same page in another language) in reality, this feature is seldom used. People switch language on the homepage, or end up on your site using search terms that are language sensitive in 95% of the cases.
benefits of creating a subsite per language:
- you can use dictionary items!
- no excessive amounts of tabs
- more freedom with required fields and validation
- navigation, breadcrumbs & content roll-ups are a lot easier to write
- content editors can be restricted to a single language
- you can have a proper (seperate) workflow for approvals & translation for each language
- automatic SEO (titles, meta tags,...)
So there are little downsides to not using a 1:1 structure, and those can probably even be overcome with enhancing the "create page" event in the backend, so that a page in each other language is automatically created if it doesn't exist yet, linking them together. the only thing you might then want to create is a tool in the backend that allows you to switch back and forth between the different language versions of each page.
These two enhancements of the backend would require an experienced Umbraco developer to work on it, but then at least you'll have something that isn't a quick & dirty hack :) i'll buy you a beer if you make it and spread it as a package.
Out of the box: nope, can't be done (seo url's) custom development is required anyway... might as wel do it right :)
"One site with two languages" see, this is where i believe that my solution is still one website with multiple languages, i just choose to have a page (node) for each language version of a page:
my conclusion: if you have less than 4-5 days of development to be spend on making a mechanism, forget about 1:1 multilingual websites with SEO-friendly language specific url's.
Rik, thank you for most valuable input. After done some thinking I've come to the conclusion that your solution might afterall be the best fitted for my needs.
Multilingual 1:1 sites
I'm about to develop a multilingual website and would like some input. The specification is as follows:
Soooo... What is your question?
You'll be writing some pretty complex url rewriting in order for the SEO URL's to work, since a nodename can't be used anymore for determining what page/language version to render...
personally, i don't like the 1:1 idea at all. what are the downsides of having a subsite per language?
- a little bit more difficult to manage for content editors
- it's more complex to create "fast language switching" (= in the front-end, change your browsing language and being redirected to the same page in another language) in reality, this feature is seldom used. People switch language on the homepage, or end up on your site using search terms that are language sensitive in 95% of the cases.
benefits of creating a subsite per language:
- you can use dictionary items!
- no excessive amounts of tabs
- more freedom with required fields and validation
- navigation, breadcrumbs & content roll-ups are a lot easier to write
- content editors can be restricted to a single language
- you can have a proper (seperate) workflow for approvals & translation for each language
- automatic SEO (titles, meta tags,...)
So there are little downsides to not using a 1:1 structure, and those can probably even be overcome with enhancing the "create page" event in the backend, so that a page in each other language is automatically created if it doesn't exist yet, linking them together. the only thing you might then want to create is a tool in the backend that allows you to switch back and forth between the different language versions of each page.
These two enhancements of the backend would require an experienced Umbraco developer to work on it, but then at least you'll have something that isn't a quick & dirty hack :) i'll buy you a beer if you make it and spread it as a package.
Out of the box: nope, can't be done (seo url's) custom development is required anyway... might as wel do it right :)
"One site with two languages" see, this is where i believe that my solution is still one website with multiple languages, i just choose to have a page (node) for each language version of a page:
my conclusion: if you have less than 4-5 days of development to be spend on making a mechanism, forget about 1:1 multilingual websites with SEO-friendly language specific url's.
I've used this setup for a multilingual website: http://www.cultiv.nl/blog/2010/12/19/tip-of-the-week-the-ultimate-site-structure-setup
Jeroen
Rik, thank you for most valuable input. After done some thinking I've come to the conclusion that your solution might afterall be the best fitted for my needs.
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