Localization and Meta Tags

[Jordan S.]

I'm looking to localize an ASP.NET Web application for English, Spanish, and
French (fr-CA), and was just considering the possibility of localizing the
meta tags (e.g., keywords, title, and description). My assumption was that
they should be localized like all of the other content. But in reviewing a
couple of popular Web sites that are localized, it appears that they do not
localize the meta tags.

So, I'm hoping some of you more knowledgeable than I on localization issues
can provide some perspective on this. Should I allow for localized meta
tags? Do search engines care? Could it *hurt* a site's rankings to localize
meta tags like keywords, title, and description?

Thanks.

 

[darrel]

So, I'm hoping some of you more knowledgeable than I on localization

issues can provide some perspective on this. Should I allow for localized
meta tags? Do search engines care? Could it *hurt* a site's rankings to
localize meta tags like keywords, title, and description?

The meta data is related to the data, and if the data is localized, then I'd
say the meta data should be too.

Do search engines care? Sure. If they use the meta tags for indexing. Google
does not, for the most part.

Could it hurt a site's ranking in Google? I dunno. I doubt it, but no one
really knows how Google really works anyways. ;o)

-Darrel

 

[Mihai N.]

meta tags (e.g., keywords, title, and description). My assumption was that

they should be localized like all of the other content. But in reviewing a
couple of popular Web sites that are localized, it appears that they do not
localize the meta tags.

Definitely localizable.

Should I allow for localized meta
tags? Do search engines care? Could it *hurt* a site's rankings to localize
meta tags like keywords, title, and description?

The French meta might hurt in the American rankings
But it helps in the French ones.

 

[Mike Gleason jr Couturier]

I'm looking to localize an ASP.NET Web application for English, Spanish,
and French (fr-CA), and was just considering the possibility of localizing
the meta tags (e.g., keywords, title, and description). My assumption was
that they should be localized like all of the other content. But in
reviewing a couple of popular Web sites that are localized, it appears
that they do not localize the meta tags.

So, I'm hoping some of you more knowledgeable than I on localization
issues can provide some perspective on this. Should I allow for localized
meta tags? Do search engines care? Could it *hurt* a site's rankings to
localize meta tags like keywords, title, and description?

Thanks.

What I did on my site was :

1. use a MasterPage...
2. I placed literals in the meta tag content of the master page.
3. Derive all my pages using the masterpage from a common Interface
4. On the page load of the masterpage, I call methods of the interface
implemented by the page to populate the meta tag literals.

That way, each page can provide meta information to the master page. The
methods can return a string in the WebResource, so it automatically returns
the description/keywords in the proper language.

I also did it for the page title...

Mike