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Dec
19
2007
Be Careful of Joomla Automatic Translation Tools
Written by Steve Burge   
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People love short cuts. People particularly love short cuts that they think will reach 1000s of new customers. So, its easy to understand why people might love automatic translation tools.


  • "I've just translated my site into 12 languages by installing a module! Cool!
  • "Hey, my website's in Chinese now ... thats a billion new customers!"


However, this is a clear case where easy is not best.


The key thing to remember is you don't want automatically translated pages to be indexed. Do not use a solution which creates pages such as mydomain.com/es/, mydomain.com/en/, mydomain.com/de/ and so. Thats 100s of pages of extra content - all of it low value and barely understandable.


Let me provide you with an example from Google's Translation tools which is actually one of the very best. This is the translation of Joomla.de's What is Joomla? page:


Joomla! Is a so-called content management system (CMS), which is a simple way the contents of a website design. It is suitable for small and medium-sized outlets, but also big portals have already implemented this system.  Is very easy to use and all that ... the user. Another feature is its flexibility. With the help of a start, it's not complicated! .


And thats between two closely related languages. Imagine the mess that will result when you jump from Greek to Chinese or from Japanese to Arabic. The best the machines can do is produce text that is understandable, but its certainly not anything that you'd want people to confuse with something you've written. Some people also think that search engines punish bad grammar and spelling. I'm not entirely sure thats true but it is another reason not to allow your machine-translated pages to be indexed. Make sure that automatic translations take place off your site.

Modules We Recommend 

  • Yahoo Translation Module. Uses the Babelfish translation engine.
  • Joomla Translation (JTrans Pro) Component. The old version only! We use it here at Alledia. Notice when you click on the flag icons, it will take you to Google's site rather than creating an extra page on Alledia.com. ($39.95) The latest version of the JTransPro commits all the sins mentioned above. You can see how the extra pages are created on their demo site (French, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish etc.). If you buy it, ask them for the old version.


 

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Comments  

 
#1 Klaus Nitsche 2007-12-20 03:46
Machine translation is bah.

As you say, the best it can do is get some kind of meaning across. And that is only if the source is written in a very simple manner, is not using idioms, tenses or grammatical constructs above the most basic ones.

I have experimented with Google Translation, Babelfish and what have you. But since I tend to actually use the resources and variety that my language offers, any machine-based translation into English (or other languages) produces horrible results.

For automated translation there has been research for decades, the difficulty level is comparable to artificial intelligence, and the results so far have been nowhere near usable. Call me in ten years or so when substantial changes might have happened. ;-)

Kind regards,
Zorro
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#2 Steve Burge 2007-12-20 10:22
Hi Zorro

You're right - I think we've hit a bit of a plateau with machines and human intelligence. They can beat us at chess and build cars, but they sure find it difficult to create something or translate a sentence of more than 5 words.

I'm happy to keep the old translation module here. I'm guessing people have a pretty good idea when the click on it that they're going to get a substandard translation, but one that will help them get the general idea.
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#3 Golforient 2008-01-17 01:50
Ok, so the translation is not that great, but it results in more traffic for sure. Potential clients who you would otherwise not have reached at all. If you are lucky they go to the English page and make an enquiry. It's a great way to broaden the reach to other countries.

I've added the module as a translation service, and not claim to have the site in 13 languages. For the adsense people (not me) I can image it's brilliant. In many ways an awesome module if you ask me.
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#4 Steve Burge 2008-01-17 07:15
Hi Golforient

If you read the post carefully, we agree that automatic translations are good, but if they happen ON your site they can lead to less traffic. Take a look at your site in Google. Do you really have 4000 pages?

http://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://www.golforient.com
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#5 Zoran 2008-03-15 09:21
I don't understand why do you think that a bunch of new content will be bad for SEO. Even that content is far from perfect in grammar sense it still consists of the same words - only translated, so all keywords are still there. It seams logical for me that the page will have some rank for keywords in translated language (especially if you get few links from directories that are in languages you have translations for). Also, I don't see why the new content would harm rank for keywords in English. I don't really believe that Google can figure out grammar mistakes - if it would be the case than Google would improve its translation tool. There is no sense that Google's translation tool makes mistakes that Google as search engine can detect.

All compliments for the page by the way, it really informative. I hope you'll find some time to explain more detail your point of view.

Zoran
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#6 Steve Burge 2008-03-15 14:56
Hi Zoran

Two main reasons:

1) Experience. Sites we've seen with automatically translated pages on their site have suffered big ranking drops.

2) Quality is better than quantity when it comes to text on your site (www.alledia.com/blog/search-engine-optimisation-(seo)/joomla-seo--why-less-is-often-more/).
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#7 hdr 2008-06-12 03:44
Which version of Joomla Translation (JTrans Pro) Component do you specifically recommend?
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#8 Steve Burge 2008-06-12 06:37
Hi HDR

Older versions such as PRO 0.2.

If you click on the flags and it takes you to a Google page, thats fine. If it takes you to an extra page on your site, thats trouble.
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#9 Wade Onuffer 2009-01-25 08:31
I was wondering if the old pro version of JTrans Pro is the only way to translate the site into another language keeping SEO efforts in place.
I would not want to loose a bunch of pages rank due to a translator.

My customer is using Joomla 1.0 with virtuemart shopping cart system.
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#10 Steve Burge 2009-01-25 10:16
No - far from the only way, but the old JTrans Pro is better than the new version.
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