Google caches Greek page in Russian

I.N. Galidakis · Jan 12, 2008

Can anyone tell me why Google is caching my main page in Russian instead of
Greek?

http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/

(To see the cached version please click here first:
http://tinyurl.com/26kap4 and then click on cached version, etc)

Is it because my page does not include:
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">?

Only a couple of pages include Greek, so if this can do the trick, I'd be more
than satisfied to include it.

Many thanks and apologies for my abysmal ignorance of html

Harlan Messinger · Jan 12, 2008

I.N. Galidakis said:
Can anyone tell me why Google is caching my main page in Russian instead of
Greek?

http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/

(To see the cached version please click here first:
http://tinyurl.com/26kap4 and then click on cached version, etc)

Is it because my page does not include:
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">?

No.

It *is* strange. The source code for the cached page shows that your
meta tag for windows-1253 is there, but Google inserts its own tag

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=KOI8-R">

at the top of the page.

Adrienne Boswell · Jan 12, 2008

Gazing into my crystal ball I observed "I.N. Galidakis"

Can anyone tell me why Google is caching my main page in Russian
instead of Greek?

http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/

(To see the cached version please click here first:
http://tinyurl.com/26kap4 and then click on cached version, etc)

Is it because my page does not include:
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">?

Only a couple of pages include Greek, so if this can do the trick, I'd
be more than satisfied to include it.

Many thanks and apologies for my abysmal ignorance of html

They're caching it in English for me, but I have my preferences set to
English. Change your language preference and see if it makes a
difference.

Jukka K. Korpela · Jan 12, 2008

Scripsit I.N. Galidakis:

Can anyone tell me why Google is caching my main page in Russian
instead of Greek?

It isn't.

http://ioannis.virtualcomposer2000.com/

OK. The HTTP headers don't specify the character encoding, and some
people don't like that, but by the specs and by browser practice, the
meta tag information will then be used. It's windows-1253 encoded, which
is OK for almost all practical purposes

(To see the cached version please click here first:
http://tinyurl.com/26kap4 and then click on cached version, etc)

It's all Greek to us, and most people here don't grok Greek. However,
with some obvious guesswork, the link can be identified. The cached
version is definitely not Russian. It's mumbo-jumbo. The _encoding_ is
KOI8-R, and this is specified both in HTTP headers and in a meta tag.
This does not make it Russian any more than you can turn some
barbarians' nonsense into Greek by declaring it windows-1253 encoded.

I think you have spotted a bug in Google. There's knowledgeable people
at Google, including people very fluent in encoding issues, and you
should send a bug report to Google. But don't hold your breathe; it'll
probably take months before the bug will be fixed. Google seems to have
all the usual problems of a _big_ organization.

Is it because my page does not include:
<!doctype html public "-//w3c//dtd html 4.0 transitional//en">?

Hardly. And I wouldn't even try with a bogus doctype. Adding a doctype
declaration that conforms to HTML specifications would be a good idea,
though it probably wouldn't affect this problem. Hint: a conforming
doctype declaration has two quoted strings, and the text inside quotes
is case-sensitive.

I.N. Galidakis · Jan 13, 2008

I.N. Galidakis said:
Can anyone tell me why Google is caching my main page in Russian
instead of Greek?

Many thanks to all who responded. It is indeed not Russian as Jukka states,
rather, Greek with Russian characters, hence nonsense.

I may very well file a google bug report and see what happens.

Thanks again,

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Google caches Greek page in Russian

I.N. Galidakis

Harlan Messinger

Adrienne Boswell

Jukka K. Korpela

I.N. Galidakis

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