english/french domains and 1 cart, how do I configure language?

[britincanada]

Hi

 

We are a Quebec based art company that wishes to sell online. We have a english domain name and a french (only difference is "and" or "et" in the middle of our company name)

 

We have the hosting on our french domain name, as the english domain is redirected. Is there a way to set up OSC to have our store in english if visitors come from our english domain and french if visitors come from french domain name?

 

I did read somewhere that OSC can see what language the browser of the visitor is in and then display store in that language, which would solve all our problems!!! is this true?

 

many thanks

 

CB

[Gauravs]

I am not sure if OSC has inbuilt feature - haven't seen it as yet, for redirect based on language. However you can use .htaccess file to redirect to URL thus if request comes from english.com - redirect to english page, and if it is french - use french page.

Your server has to support mod_rewrite in order to allow this redirect, a sample is given below - you would have to work on this a bit though.

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RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^ENGLISH.com [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.ENGLISH.com/english.php [L,R=301]

 

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.FRENCH.com [NC]

RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.FRENCH.COM/french.php [L,R=301]

 

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A. This may not work at all - due to config.php settings

Also, in config.php you define store root and other details but only one setting is allowed - thus you may run into trouble if you wish to display English.com & French.com in URL / Address bar. An option would be to select only one primary domain name for the cart to function properly.

 

B. Hosting is rather cheap these days, you may run 2 different stores - gives you a backlink and chance of doing better in local search results (SEO)