translate meta tags?

Hello all.

I'm producing a DIY multilingual site. I'm using a templating engine (rainTPL) and my own static language files (php arrays).

In these files I not only have the page strings but also the meta tag and title contents. I'd just like to know if you think this is a bad idea.

The 'current language' is set via a session variable not a querystring, so urls are identical, no matter what the current language.

So, will SEO be a problem? There could be a load of possible title and meta tag alternatives for the same page, depending on the user's current language.

If you think this is a problem, could anybody suggest an alternative?

[twiss]

Perhaps you should place the user's language in the url?

That's what I'm trying to avoid.

I don't want to change www.diafol.org/index.php to www.diafol.org/en/index.php etc. if I can help it. rewriting would be trivial I know, but it just looks messy. However, if my method means SEO is poor, I don't think I'll have much choice.

[twiss]

Well, it's your choice. As bots will never be logged in, they will only be able to crawl the english version if you don't provide a link to the other language versions. If you do, however, it's cleaner to place that language in the url somewhere - I wouldn't like to have a cookie on my pc for that.

Fair one. I've been browsing SEO of late and it seems that meta tags have next to no importance anymore, but that confusing meta tags can have a negative impact.

Perhaps the most important aspect for me will be that the static page elements become dynamic, so it looks as though I'll have to succumb...