FagEnd

The auld alliance. The French have always like the finer things in life

getmein

I'd go with the new french domain, hosted in france, content in french and optimised for french search terms. Presumably you can adapt the existing design with the new french content - so that should keep the costs down. Having a .fr domain in french will also make it far easier to get french links to the site. Also agree that it's vital to have a decent translation - when I read craptastic content in english I rapidly lose faith in the people behind the business.

I would imagine the costs of this strategy would rapidly be covered by the amount of extra business it would generate.

jj1

many thanks to all for your help and replies.

I shall put this new french domain forward to the customer as an option - presumably Google will treat this like a new site and it will have to go thru a "new website penalty" period the same as most websites do? Or is there some way of getting Google to transfer the trust of the chateaudeplehaut.co.uk to chateaudeplehaut.fr (apart from obviously a link)??? I assume a redirect cannot be used as I still want to keep the .co.uk site.

Regarding, French translation, are there any GOOD but reaosnably priced French translaters out there?

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getmein

I wouldn't be worrying about short term rankings - presumably your client is going to be in business for more than 6 months. If you can get some decent links I'd say it's not going to be a problem. If your client is trying to do everything on a shoestring, they'll have to do some of the link building work themselves.

As far as translation is concerned - you could try a service like lingo 24 - but perhaps your client can find someone in france to do it.

crabfoot

Regarding the translation - there are little clues in the phrasing, suggesting that a lot of the original material was in French - perhaps the originals are still available.

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domainmonster_m

Hi

I think the chateaudeplehaut.eu and chateaudeplehaut.com domain names would work well in this case as they are both highly recognised by the French market. Both are available to register at Domain Registration - Domain Registration Search Services and you can forward tehm to your existing website with the option of viewing the site in French.

The LAUNCH of the new .eu IDNs at 10.00 tomorrow morning means that you can preregister domains including local accents, so if chateau de plehaut is actually chateau de pléhaut, then you can now register it in its true French form which will attract more French viewers. dotEU IDN - Buy Domains in Internationalised Domain Format

Good luck!

FagEnd

Is that the sole registrar they are free to register?
I smell spammy posts here

crabfoot

Yesm, that smells like a blatant advert.

OTOH the French do like things "spelled correctly", and resent the fact that accents can't be put in domain names.

You can get é on any keyboard by holding Alt-Gr and pressing e, but other than the acute accent you are a bit stuffed if you don't have a stupid AZERTY French keyboard (if you have to do EuroBiz a Swiss one is best).

Whatever, until it gets OBVIOUS it is not going to work for type in traffic, and Google will have to wake up to it.

My opinion still holds - stick with .fr if you want to sell French things to Frenchman.

I still remember going on a holiday up the Rhine with a "wise old courier" - she ignored the tour company instructions, and took us to "Adolf's Weinbau" - which was pleasant.
Adolf took our party into the cellar, then apologised for the surroundings. "The main room is full of French people - they come here, insult the wine, buy a little, and expect to pay with French money in Germany" he said. "Yes, I take the money ... I don't have to like them".

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