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WHAT - GLOBAL WEB SITE
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Any Site that provides a menu to switch languages (2 languages or more) would qualify as a Global Site. The menu can be a language menu as you see in many language industry sites or a global portal menu as you see in a big global enterprise such as Microsoft.
However in a more limited sense, a Global Site should have its pages in different languages synchronized. If its language pages are completely independent of each other, it is hardly a global site. If the pages are identical in design but only differ in languages such as this site, it is 100% synchronized. In the global sites of big enterprises, some cultural differences are often taken into consideration and pages are varied in design here and there.
From the above, the Global Site can be defined as the site planned and built with the global market or audience in scope. Even if such a site carries just two languages for now, the site should be able to add new language pages easily when opportunities or needs arise.
Some Global Sites are so intelligent that they recognize a particular language the visiting browser is using and display the corresponding language automatically. This site is one of those. In rare cases, they omit the language menu and disguise as the local site of that language.
To develop Global Sites is conceptually very similar to developing global or international software. Many rules and techniques for international software apply also to Global Sites.
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c Copyright 2003 Tim Electronic Office. All
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