By adding foreign language versions of their websites, webmasters have the potential to significantly improve their exposure to non-English speaking visitors and search engines. While many non-English speakers would prefer to access the World Wide Web in their native languages, approximately 80% of the Internet’s content is written in English alone. From a search engine optimization perspective, some of the fastest growing search engines in the world (for example, China’s Baidu) will only index pages that are written in other languages.
Machine translation of websites applies rule-based algorithms to transform content into foreign languages. Computer programs can now perform this task automatically (and semi-reliably) without direct human intervention.
From a quality standpoint, translated content generated by computer scripts remains inferior to human-generated text. Although automated programs have improved considerably over the last decade, none can truly claim to address all cultural and linguistic subtleties. To prove it, visit Google Translate and convert the following sentence from English to Japanese:
“This English text was converted to Japanese.”
Now, translate the result back to English and you will see:
“This English translation of the text is in Japanese.”
The second message still conveys to the reader that some kind of rewriting of the language involving English and Japanese took place. However, much of the original message is lost in the process.
For webmasters, automatic language conversion programs allow them to make their content available to the non-English speaking world. While machine translated content is not acceptable for certain types of content, such as legal documents or poetry collections, such services can be very beneficial when language demands are less demanding.
Compared to the alternative of hiring humans, there are some compelling reasons that favor automatic language transformation. First, using an automated program is much less expensive than using humans. Second, with the use of automation, foreign language versions can instantly adapt to changes in the source page.
There are two general approaches webmasters can use to generate foreign language versions of their content.
- The first approach is to direct visitors to the Google Translate website for non-English versions. This method is free, but it is somewhat slow. Also, the benefits of search engine optimization (SEO) for a website are limited (if any) since the foreign language pages are located on an external website (ie Google).
- The second approach would be to buy a script that stores “cached” versions of the foreign language versions on your own web server. This approach is preferable from an SEO perspective, but it comes at a nominal upfront cost. Having evaluated several automated scripts, the one I recommend is Website Translator [http://www.website-translator.com]
When implementing foreign language translations, webmasters are advised to ask a native speaker to review foreign content. As with any other changes you may consider, always keep the interests of your site visitors in mind first.
