Language of client

[OmyGOD]

Hi

I am from Taiwan. I'm runnung an English version of WindowsXP and set
the default charset to Big5(zh-tw).

The question is the first time when I link to www.google.com, Google
can determine that I'm using big5 and locate me on www.google.com.tw.

At first I thought it determined form $_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LA NGUAGE"],
but read through the $_SERVER array, there's nothing about "zh-tw" or
"big5". Does anyone know how Google do that?

Thanks

[NSpam]

Re: Language of client

OmyGOD wrote:[color=blue]
> Hi
>
> I am from Taiwan. I'm runnung an English version of WindowsXP and set
> the default charset to Big5(zh-tw).
>
> The question is the first time when I link to www.google.com, Google
> can determine that I'm using big5 and locate me on www.google.com.tw.
>
> At first I thought it determined form $_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LA NGUAGE"],
> but read through the $_SERVER array, there's nothing about "zh-tw" or
> "big5". Does anyone know how Google do that?
>
> Thanks
>[/color]
look at the headers your browser sends

[John Dunlop]

Re: Language of client

OmyGOD wrote:
[color=blue]
> The question is the first time when I link to www.google.com, Google
> can determine that I'm using big5 and locate me on www.google.com.tw.[/color]

Likely from Accept-Language (RFC2616 sec. 14.4).

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616

[color=blue]
> At first I thought it determined form $_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LA NGUAGE"],[/color]

Google does make use of Accept-Language to decide the
language of your interface.

http://www.google.com/help/faq.html#display

[color=blue]
> but read through the $_SERVER array, there's nothing about "zh-tw" or
> "big5". Does anyone know how Google do that?[/color]

Maybe you unwittingly set preferences. They don't know what
you haven't told them, but they might remember things you
told them in the past.

http://www.google.com/preferences

--
Jock

[R. Rajesh Jeba Anbiah]

Re: Language of client

OmyGOD wrote:[color=blue]
> I am from Taiwan. I'm runnung an English version of WindowsXP and set
> the default charset to Big5(zh-tw).
>
> The question is the first time when I link to www.google.com, Google
> can determine that I'm using big5 and locate me on www.google.com.tw.
>
> At first I thought it determined form[/color]
$_SERVER["HTTP_ACCEPT_LA NGUAGE"],[color=blue]
> but read through the $_SERVER array, there's nothing about "zh-tw" or
> "big5". Does anyone know how Google do that?[/color]

Google does country detection based on IP. Refer
<http://www.ip-to-country.com/>

--
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