russian characters

[purdywurdy]

Has anyone got experience in building a site in Russian?

I am a webmaster who is trying to figure out how i go about doing a site for a client in Russian. Is it simple? Or do i need to use incoding or any problems that I may run into with browsers etc? or, will there be any difference between Unicode KOI8, CP1251 , UTF-8. Sorry its all to new for me at the moment, and need to figure out the best way to deal with this

Thanks Jane

[Irony]

Hi and welcome Jane :hi:

Try:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=windows-1251">

[purdywurdy]

ok, so this is all i need for browsers to recognise russian characters ... thanks... Ive just tried to paste some russian content into homesite and its coming up as ???????. In word I can recognise the characters but not in homesite. DO I need to download russian unicode or something like that in order for homesite to recognise the characters too?

sorry about all these questions, but its my first time working with these characters,

jane

[Irony]

Try playing with "Regional and Language Options" in your control panel, assuming you are using Windows.

What is the URL of your site? If you are using the right meta charset, I, at least, should be able to see the characters properly.

[purdywurdy]

Thanks, that seemed to work, now I can paste russian character in homesite B)

In fact I have not started on the site yet... I was just doing some research into possible complications I may encounter before I start duplicating the site and quote a price for my client...

I will send you the link once I get started on it, and of course If i have any problem, it would be great to contact you again..

Thanks for your help again

JAne

[Irony]

You are welcome :)

[Connie]

Hi Jane and welcome. :hi:

[purdywurdy]

Hi there, so far so good, thanks for the help.... dont worry will hit you with a question soon ;) hope your as good a help as Irony !

jane

[g1smd]

Why would you use Windows-1251 over a more universal character set, like perhaps UTF-8?

Is there any problem with using UTF-8? I would have thought it the best option nowadays.

[Irony]

I have yet to find the first site using UTF-8. Actually, all Russian sites I have checked so far, use Windows-1251. Even if they don't have a metatag for this, they serve it through their HTTP header, eg yandex.ru (our most popular local search engine), as I've found out using Server Header Checker at http://www.searchengineworld.com/cgi-bin/servercheck.cgi.

You are probably right, and UTF-8 could be better, but old habits die hard :)

What is the worst of it, there are too many different encoding standards around, and as a result we often get all sorts of meaningless special characters instead of proper Cyrillic, when the software fails to recognize the standard automatically (Outlook is often guilty of it). We call those special characters "crocozebras" :D In my life, I've seen a lot of different breeds of those weird animals :lol:

I'm not actually so much of an expert. Our company works with English language sites, most of the time. We do Russian sites sometimes (really very seldom), and always use Windows-1251 for them. It works with browsers and with the engines, as well.

I think, when Jane is ready to upload her site, we can test both options and see which one works better.

I usually can see Russian characters just fine, even when someone posts them here or PM's me in Russian through this board, though it is not supposed to handle Cyrillic. I think it is because my Regional and Language Options are set to show "Russia". But I know that members from other countries see "crocozebras".

[g1smd]

I use Wndows 98SE and have installed all of the additional IME packs that I could find, so I rarely see garbage on any site - even if I have no idea what the site is about, at least it displays correctly.

[purdywurdy]

Ok, well I will probably starting the site in the next week or so, and will let ye know the link. I can try it both ways and see what happens... I dont understand russian, so Irony you can look and see if the characters come out differently..

Again thanks for the helpful info

jane

[purdywurdy]

Ok, well I will probably starting the site in the next week or so, and will let ye know the link. I can try it both ways and see what happens... I dont understand russian, so Irony you can look and see if the characters come out differently..

Again thanks for the helpful info

jane

[Irony]

We can post screenshots and compare them. :) The only way actually ;)

If I spot bad grammar or something, I'll let you know, too :)

[purdywurdy]

Ok, sounds good! Will post some screenshots once Ive started on it... Thanks

[g1smd]

The above post was meant to be in http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=20804

[Connie]

Jane I merged your two threads. Please keep all your comments on this one subject in the same thread.

[g1smd]

Looks like an accident... she probably hit new thread instead of reply.

Her English is waay better than my Russian anyday.

[purdywurdy]

Yeah, sorry I hit new thread, and then i realised I needed to hit reply instead... I tried to delete the new thread but no joy!

Ive got the swing of it now, sorry... Im a newbee to these forums B)

My english is way better than my russian too!

[purdywurdy]

I have recieved a little content, and have put some into the homepage. It still contains some old spanish content, so please ignore that. I have added the following russian content:

1. the javascript top navigation
2. The text links on the right
3 The header (image) for text links.

The URL for the page is www.kentech.ie/kentech/index_ru.html

I have also inclosed a screenshot from firefox. Let me know if yoyu want me to upload more screenshot and I can, but It only allows you to upload one photo at a time

Hope this helps, Thanks Jane

[Irony]

Well Jane.

First, the screenshot proves that you see Cyrillic all right, which means Windows-1251 works perfectly.

Second, I, of course, see the proper characters, too - but that's as expected. I often see Cyrillic letters even on sites where they aren't supposed to be :D

Your page tried to make me install Macromedia Flash 8.0, which I refused to do. Prepare to lose some visitors because of that.

Now, try UTF-8 and compare the results.

[purdywurdy]

Oooo a bit different, Im sure its not russian! screenshot enclosed.

Also the new URL with charset="UTF-8"

http://www.kentech.ie/kentech/index2_ru.html

Also Question. Did you get a pop-up to install flash? or was it just writen on the html page?

DO most russian stear clear of flash? There is only flash on the homepage, so its not really nessicary for the rest of the site, but if its puts user off from visiting the site, then this is something I should bring up to my client.

Thanks for the quick response

jane

[Irony]

Russians love Flash, but too many of us still use dial-up. The 8th version is too much.... couldn't you use the 7th at least? It's included by default with the modern browsers AFAIK (I could be wrong).

Yep, I got a pop-up.

I still see proper Cyrillic, but you are seeing classic crocozebras (a very familiar-looking breed :D ) G1, see now? UTF-8 is obviously no good.

And BTW... JavaScript links can't be read by the search engine spiders... including Russian search engine spiders. Why are you using them?

[purdywurdy]

Ok, I understand that sometime waiting for an animation can be nerve wracking... The animation is 155k, which could take time on a dial up. I have just change the version of the flash file to flash 7.

I think the best thing to do is advise my client not to use the animation on the homepage.


Do you still get a pop up window to download flash at http://www.kentech.ie/kentech/index_ru.html ?

The only reason I use the javascript links there are because they are for small pop up window templates... for news items or new project profiles. I will probably do individual meta tags on each page with russian characters for each html page.

Again thanks for the help... and the tips... Will get back to you once I get started on the site, as Im sure i may run into other problems with the character use.

Also, in Russia, do most people view sites on an 800x600 resolution?

Thanks

jane

[Connie]

DO most russian stear clear of flash?
I can't speak for Russians but when I hit a flash site I leave. If it's just a small bit of flash on a page I will never load it.

[Blue]

I think most users are now not so wary of flash and most probably don't mind waiting a small amount of time for it, but it better be something good.

:)

There are those that like flash.

Then there those that simply don't have the plug-in installed, so will not see it or will be asked to install the plug-in.

And finally, there are those like our own Connie, who'll get so disgusted by it that they'll leave never to return.

So, you should keep it there, IMO, but make accomodations for those that don't like it and won't/can't view it.

[Irony]

Originally posted by purdywurdy
Do you still get a pop up window to download flash at http://www.kentech.ie/kentech/index_ru.html ?


No, not anymore.

Once again, Jane, if you code all the links in JavaScripts, the engines will never find those other pages, so creating individual metatags will be a nice waste of time.

You need to hang with us a bit :)

[Irony]

Also, in Russia, do most people view sites on an 800x600 resolution?

No :)

I'm on 1024*768; people who use LCD monitors (which I hate), are usually on 1280*1024.

[purdywurdy]

Well, I can understand not wanting to download a plug in....I never do...But, if its already installed (with most browsers), then the flash is visible. In this site theres only an animation on the home page "to jazz it up" as the client specified... personaly I dont think its needed.... Plus, I can see more complications when it come to trying to animate in Russian characters into it (with swfx) and personaly I dont wanna deal with this!

regarding meta tags and JS. I though the crawlers crawled every file within the site no? I am using a main navigation in JS, and if I search for words within one of the other pages, I get the page in my answers... however with the pop-up windows I dont... mmm! so its because of the JS links?

Is there another solution to calling pop-up wondows of a specific size, that will be found by the search engines...

sorry too many questions ;)

[Irony]

The crawlers can only follow links that have the href="pagename.htm" or href="http://www.domainname.com/pagename.htm" code in them.

If your links don't have it, then the crawlers won't follow them and will never find those pages.

[g1smd]

Imagine this:

Even if the bots did find those pop-up windows, and did actually index them, what happens to a user who goes to that page as it was found in the search results?

For them, the page will not be "popped up" over anything, and will not have any naviation to get to any other place on the site either. The page will be a dead end.

You do not want to index pop up pages. If the content is really worthwhile, it needs to be on a "normal" page.

[purdywurdy]

Yeah, your right actually, the pop ups dont need to come up on a search result (though the main site link is in the bottom nav of the pop-ups.... The page that links to it needs to have the meta stuff for the pop-up... ok, cool, one less problem to think about ;) Thanks.

So far the search engines are working fine finding the pages from the site, when i search for specific content... mostly coming in the top 10, so im happy with that.

Thanks again for all the useful info... I will remember this when building future sites

jane