How to construct language dependent sites in Sitecore 6.2?

Question

I'm building multiple language sites with Sitecore 6.2. In some cases we want the language version to have its own internet domain (e.g. En-US default of www.MySite.com, Da-DK Danish translation at www.MySite.dk).

What I'd like to know is there any good reason why I shouldn't simply use language versioning within Sitecore to establish a set of translations and then just create a new site node in the web config which specifies the language variant internet domain (www.MySite.dk) with a default language da-DK, like so:

<site 
    name="www.MyWebsite.com" 
    virtualFolder="/"
    physicalFolder="/" 
    rootPath="/sitecore/content"
    startItem="/home"
    language="en-US" 
    database="web" 
    domain="extranet" 
    />

<site 
    name="www.MyWebsite.dk" 
    virtualFolder="/"
    physicalFolder="/" 
    rootPath="/sitecore/content"
    startItem="/home"
    language="da-DK" 
    database="web" 
    domain="extranet" 
    />

Is this likely to have unforeseen (by me, at any rate) consequences for e.g. publishing, caching etc.?

Obviously such an architecture limits flexibility with respect to how much actual divergence there can be between the two sites, but I think we've got that covered.

Language will be set to be preserved in paths.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

As far as I know, what you want to do is correct. Both sites use the same tree/architecture and you're relying on language versioning of items to swap between the en and dk content. If you do have caching on, make sure you add new cache blocks in the web.config for the dk site. I believe by default the cache blocks are only for "website" and you need to add a new one.

I think you might have some config settings wrong for the <site> nodes. You need hostName to tell Sitecore which setting to match on based on the host binding. E.g.

<site name="website_en" hostName="www.mywebsite.com" ...>
<site name="website_dk" hostName="www.mywebsite.dk" ...>