What I would like to do is register one ".com" domain

and another as a different national TLD such as ".kr"

On the the server there would be an English index.php page with a folder for all the English language pages

AND

an index_kr.php page with a folder for all the Korean pages.

Ideally I'd like some kind of browser language detection to
show whichever index page is appropriate when a visitor lands on the site.

How can I do that?
Are there any SEO or security issues?

How can I do that?

IP detection and redirect, better done server side than client side. BUT if you use separate folders and a different index page you don't need redirects.

Are there any SEO or security issues?

All major SE bots have US IPs so will never index the Korean language pages

Security issues are the same as with any site.

So lets forget about IP detection for a minute.
(I'm not a big fan actually. I hate it when websites assume that because i happen to be in a particular country i want to see sites for that language).


Lets say I just want anyone entering www.mysite.com into the URL box to go to the english page and anyone entering www.mysite.kr into the URL box to go to the korean page.

Likewise the search bots.
I'd like each respective URL to appear in the SERPs

But without duplicating all my site assets, whats the most efficient way to set that up?

Depends on how your hosting is set up.

Simplest way is to have the .kr in one folder and the .com files in a different one then server the files from the appropriate folder depending on which hostname was requested.
If the file names are the same for the page to be served, it's a really simple task with any server side code.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Depends on how your hosting is set up.

Simplest way is to have the .kr in one folder and the .com files in a different one then server the files from the appropriate folder depending on which hostname was requested.

When you say "hostname" you mean URL, right?

Can you give me a clue about how the server side code would dish up the correct setof pages? I'm using PHP.

The hostname for internet addresses is the bit from the sub to the tld. eg: blog.domain.tld

Shell pages in the root directory with this code;

PHP Code:

<?php
switch ($_SERVER["HOST_NAME"]) {
    case "www.domain.com":
        include "/path_to_com_page/" . $_SERVER["PHP_SELF]" ;
        break;
    case "www.domain.kr":
        include "/path_to_kr_page/" . $_SERVER["PHP_SELF]";
        break;
}
?>

And the files for each language in sub folders.

Thanks Chris.

Search engines crawling the .com address would see the English content
and when crawling the .kr address would see the Korean content. Is that correct?

So would this could just go into a single index.php file in the root directory?

in the simplistic way I have set the code, you would have 3 files for every URI. One in the .com folder and one in the .kr folder. The third is in the root and has the code above in it only.

There are of course better ways of handling this using a CMS system but for simple sites consisting of a few pages it's a quick and easy solution.

Originally Posted by chrishirst

in the simplistic way I have set the code, you would have 3 files for every URI. One in the .com folder and one in the .kr folder. The third is in the root and has the code above in it only.

This sounds like a really good solution to my problem!

So just to make it crystal clear, lets say i had a simple 3 page site.
A home page, a contact page, and a products page.

I have these two domain names, with both DNS pointing to the same location:
www.mysite.com
www.mysite.kr

The site architecture would look like this?:

/index.php (with Chris's code above ONLY)

/eng/index.php (with the english version home page)
/eng/contact.php (english version)
/eng/products.php (english version)

/kr/index.php (with the korean version home page)
/kr/contact.php (korean version)
/kr/products.php (korean version)


Is that correct? Only ONE file is needed in the root directory?

Yes, that looks pretty good.

If you are using Cpanel then you can just redirect each domain to a specific folder from the control panel.

Originally Posted by HighLayer

Yes, that looks pretty good.

If you are using Cpanel then you can just redirect each domain to a specific folder from the control panel.

Are you talking about Add-On domains?

Thats another option I guess.
But I tend to think Chris's method is better because for one
thing, some hosting companies place a limit on how many free Add-On
domains you are allowed to have.

With Chris's "index file include method" its expandable to unlimited number
of domains I should think.

Yes, if it works for you then use that method. I was just mentioning another option just in case. We are glad to help and good luck.

Thank you. Really appreciate ALL advice on this forum.