Re: [OT] Google search default lang.

[Dave Sherohman <dave@sherohman.org>]

On Mon, Jun 20, 2011 at 10:55:43PM +1000, Scott Ferguson wrote:
> On 20/06/11 18:35, Dave Sherohman wrote:
> > Oh, if only it were that simple...  Most internationalized websites
> > (including Google) seem to have completely given up on Accept-Language
> > headers[1] in favor of relying on IP geolocation.  I'm an American expat
> > living in Sweden, so my browsers are set to send
> > 
> > Accept-Language: en-us, en, sv-se
> > 
> > Despite this, every time my Google cookie expires, it sends me the
> > Swedish version of the page.  Setting language preferences on the client
> > side does *not* work[2] for Google or most other sites.
> > 
> > 
> > [1] apparently on the theory that "most users don't know how to set
> > their preferred lanuages, so the header specifies the browser's default
> > instead of the user's preference"
> > 
> > [2] even though it damn well should
> > 
> 
> Are you sure this is not also Google's geolocation feature?

My point is that geolocation should not matter.  Yes, I am physically in
Sweden, however my Accept-Language header explicitly states that Swedish
is NOT my preferred language.  Documents should be provided in en-us if
available, then en, and only sv-se if no English version is available,
regardless of my location.

How they determine my physical location (IP geolocation vs.
approximating based on google's database of wireless access point
locations vs. GPS vs.  triangulating from cell towers vs. picking me out
of a spy satellite image vs. whatever else) is completely irrelevant to
this point.

-- 
Dave Sherohman