Situation:
I have a multi-language website and i can't use server side scripting.
This is the current structure:
1- Index.html is a white page with a javascript.
2- Javascript check a cookie.
3a- If cookie present - Redirect to the last language use on the site.
3b- If no cookie - Redirect to the browser language.
3c- If no cookie and no browser language - Redirect to english.
4- MetaRefresh redirect to english if javascript is disable.

Question:
1- Does this structure will, in any way, affect my ranking in search
engine?
2- What google will take for 'myurl' home page in his cache?

Alternative:
I put the english page as index.htm and make a refresh in javascript
when the page load and the cookie tells I must redirect the user.
1- Does my indexation may be affect by the fact my javascript have a
redirect command in it's content?
2- All the page load BEFORE the javascript is execute, including
picture. How can i avoid this. I try to hide the site with a white
DHTML layer but it's just too long for ALL user now.

Please help. Sorry for my english, not my native language.

The answers:

1) This structure *will* effect your ranking in search engines, as the
text that should come up will be that of the text that you place in
the <noscript></noscript> tags.

The applications that crawl sites for search engines aren't true
browsers.  They just download the content, and parse it as needed. 
This means that they don't support javascript.  So, whatever is in
those tags is what search engines will see.

2) Google will take the main page, but the content that's in the
<noscript></noscript> tags (as explained above).


What this means to you is that you should have the text in your
<noscript></noscript> be good enough for someone to search on, as a
blank page won't return anything from a search.