Extension:LandingCheck/de-formal

LandingCheck makes using localized and geotargeted landing pages easy. It was created as a replacement for the GeoLite extension.

When called with a landing page name and a set of user-specific parameters, the extension checks to see if a version of the landing page exists for the user's language and country. If not, it looks for a version localized for the user's language. If that doesn't exist either, it looks for the English version. If any of those exist, it then redirects the user.

How it works
GeoIP lookup: Normally LandingCheck does not perform a GeoIP lookup, but depends on the referring page to supply the user's country. If the country parameter is not supplied, the extension checks to see if the geoip_country_code_by_name function exists (from the php5-geoip package), and if so, performs its own GeoIP lookup. (As of 2010, all Wikimedia page views perform a GeoIP lookup and record the user's country in the global JavaScript variable .)

Language: LandingCheck looks for whatever landing pages correspond to the user's  variable. If none exist, it tries to find landing pages in the corresponding fallback language. So, for example, if JimmyAppeal/pt-br doesn't exist, it looks for JimmyAppeal/pt, and then JimmyAppeal/en (English is the final fallback for all languages).

Set up landing pages
First, create a set of localized landing pages using the following naming scheme: / /. For a fundraising campaign, you might set up the following pages:


 * JimmyAppeal/en - landing page localized to English
 * JimmyAppeal/en/US - landing page localized to English and customized for users in the United States
 * JimmyAppeal/en/GB - landing page localized to English and customized for users in the United Kingdom
 * JimmyAppeal/en/FR - landing page localized to English and customized for users in France
 * JimmyAppeal/fr - landing page localized to French
 * JimmyAppeal/fr/FR - landing page localized to French and customized for users in France
 * JimmyAppeal/fr/CA - landing page localized to French and customized for users in Canada

Create link
Next, set up a link that uses JavaScript to construct the LandingCheck URL with user-specific query string parameters.

Add more landing pages
As additional localized and geotargeted landing pages are created, users will automatically start being directed to them. Make sure that any new landing pages added after your link has gone live are ready to use immediately. If you need to build new localized or geotargeted landing pages gradually, build them under different names and then move them into place once they are complete.

Overrides for level-1 chapters
During the 2010 fundraiser the Wikimedia Foundation was required to send all traffic from chapter countries to chapter-specific landing pages even if they did not support the user's language. To facilitate this, an override mechanism was built into LandingCheck. Level 1 chapters were instructed to build their landing pages using the following naming scheme: / /language>. For example:


 * JimmyAppeal/GB - default landing page for United Kingdom (in English)
 * JimmyAppeal/GB/fr - landing page for United Kingdom localized to French
 * JimmyAppeal/GB/de - landing page for United Kingdom localized to German

The country codes of the level 1 chapters were then added to the $wgPriorityCountries global variable.