Adventures in web globalization, since 2002
In the 2015 Web Globalization Report Card, slightly more than half of the websites studied use geolocation specifically to improve global navigation. This is up significantly from just a few …
UPDATE: The 2017 Web Globalization Report Card is now available. I’m pleased to announce the publication of The 2015 Web Globalization Report Card. Here are the top-scoring websites from the …
Yandex is Russia’s leading search engine and, following in Google’s footsteps, is eager to take over much of Russia’s Internet, which naturally includes the web browser. Yandex is also in …
I was pleased to see the Four Seasons embrace the globe icon for its global gateway. It is well positioned in the upper right-hand corner. The Four Seasons website ranked 145th …
When you welcome visitors into your home, you probably don’t usher them directly to the basement. Yet when it comes to websites, this is exactly how many companies treat visitors from around the …
Every time Apple updates its web design (which it did recently) I get hopeful that the global gateway will receive a similar upgrade. But this has not yet happened. Apple’s global …
A few things. First, using flags to indicate language is almost always a mistake. Second, why are the language names all in English? Only the “English language” text needs to be …
Lately I’ve been writing about all those new non-Latin generic TLDs. But countries are still in the process of acquiring the local-script equivalents of their country codes. Last week, Macedonia (.mk) …
It’s nice to see GoDaddy improving its global gateway. Note the use of the globe icon below to indicate the global gateway menu: Click on the globe or locale name …
You can be a wildly successful global company and still have a poorly localized website. A number of factors determine global success and the website is only one of these …
When I lived in New York, I used to get a kick out of visiting Tiffany. Not that I actually purchased much of anything there, but I was always impressed …
Normally I like to talk about companies that have been steadily improving their global gateways. Occasionally though I encounter a company that appears to be heading in reverse. E*TRADE is heading …
Imagine if, every time you wanted to visit a website, you were expected to type in letters from a foreign language, or worse, an entirely foreign script, such as Arabic, …
I first published the Web Globalization Report Card about 10 years ago. Since then, a number of companies have developed their own internal Report Cards (and I’ve assisted with several). Adobe, in …
And here it is: I think it works. I realize some UI experts won’t agree with me on this. I’ve been told many times over the years that the globe …