Lachlan Hunt wrote:
> Steven Pemberton wrote:
>> but if you want to supply an explicit link to a language version, you 
>> can include the attribute:
>>
>>     <a href="report" hreflang="nl">The report in Dutch</a>
>>
>> I would call this the best of both worlds. It means, for instance, 
>> that someone whose preferred language is not Dutch, but who can 
>> nevertheless speak Dutch, can get to the Dutch version (for instance 
>> to check the translation).
> 
> Is this not better handled by having the langauge as part of the URI, 
> such as "report.nl" or "/nl/report"?

That is an option, but may lock you into a particular server's choice of 
naming conventions, making it hard to change server.

> With the hreflang method, if a user (who's browser preferences don't 
> include nl as a preferred language) bookmarks the page or copies and 
> pastes the URI and then tries to return to the page later, they may not 
> receive the the nl version.

Yes, this is one of the deficiencies of URLs: although there may be 
several representations of a resource at a URL, there is no standardised 
way of identifying any particular one.

Best wishes,

Steven Pemberton