Decentralized and centralized - these are the two types of websites, which, without taking their technical aspect into account, should be distinguished by judging their content and how users perceive them. If different countries have uploaded their own pages on the same website, the website design will look like one big website divided into international, domestic and local websites. Thus we will have web addresses which are based on a uniform content structure and graphical design and follow the same pattern. Interconnected websites look like one and the same website, but the URLs reveal their technical structure. In other cases, though, the design may differ slightly, e.g. in 2002 a Vietnamese company named Fo allowed more freedom to the site designers, who with the help of a Certified French Translator agency changed drastically its graphics and layout. Target countries whose websites are isolated are hardly to pose any specific problems if a local website with a clear domain name is to be found by a certain customer. If there are no links from one website to another, or from the international or domestic website, it may be difficult for some people to find the different local websites and they may easily give it up.
The three food companies that will be discussed in order to find example websites that will demonstrate the connection between the content and the language choices are Carpagio, Dramon and Armunt. The sites classify the information in various ways to build up a hierarchical structure for the pages if we pick out the target group as the main classification criterion. Furthermore, the content whose purpose is not to target any particular audience provides information to visitors about how the company develops. Several types of documents are to be found on these websites such as press releases, newsletters, price lists, timetables and brochures, but other interactive services may also be available and their number is constantly growing. All of the food companies expanded their websites in order to cover the target countries in the period between 2000 and 2004. In Europe, the main market where these companies realized their production was Germany, and creating a German version of their website was a must, so a Russian Translator firm did what was necessary. It was obvious that initially not all the languages were to be included, which explains why Armunt had only a domestic website, while Carpagio and Dramon had a global one.
Similarly to the types of websites, the languages used on the websites can be divided into the following types: local, international and domestic. For example, the official language/s of the company’s home country, like www.eric.fr, are also its domestic languages. By the year 2004, the company had developed an exclusive French domestic site, and it was functioning simultaneously with the English one which was created at the beginning. A leading role in it had the company’s French Translator offices. As the international website was in English, there were many links on the local French website that redirected to it. Carpagio, which also had only an English website, later added the domestic languages to its websites. In 2003, the pages of some other companies aroused publicity, because they were all in English, namely those of Crimprog and Fattosh, but their spokespeople said it was best to use English because everyone could understand. As a result, they ended up changing the basic languages of their sites to their home country languages as part of their policy.
