European Search Engines Forum

You and me know the importance of translations and your case surely states this fact.

I've been promoting a company renting out sommerhouses and cottages. I've been targeting primarily German and Scandinavian languages and been doing it with unique country specific TLD's (.dk, .de, .se etc.) It has been a bit of a struggle to register and host these domains, but when it all fell into place the effort was certainly worth it.
Getting the domains listed at the relevant regional Yahoo's and ODP's boosted rankings all over the board.

Dot-com domain -> english keyword -> translate body copy -> Whaam! you're on top regionally

One shouldn't overlook the directory effect. IMO a local directory listing helps strengthen the local feel. Eg. [google.de...] loves your site if is listed in [de.yahoo.com...] or [dmoz.org...]

Now, with Rencke's case in mind I start to drift a bit away from my previous belief that you needed local domain extensions to do really well in Europe. There are other benefits of having local domains hosted in each country, but SEO-wise you can do great with just a dot-com with the right translations and site structure.

Holy cow! At one point it was receiving over 10,000 visitors per day. It was on the first page for the search "Pokemon" when you used "Google español" or "Lycos español." And in 1999, it was hard to get a more competitive search term than that.

A couple of minor quibbles.

1) You mean, I presume, ODP _WORLD_ listings (the Regional listings are English-only. But there is World/Espan~ol/Paises, which is regional listings in Spanish.)

2) This is not "OK" practice. This is highly recommended and appreciated practice! The editor who handles your English submission may not know enough Spanish or Swedish to puzzle out the proper category to cross-list. But if you have content in three languages, post the URL to each language (including a description in that language, of course -- you may need help from your translator for that also).

Thank you for setting me straight on this, Oh Hutcheson! :)

The market is there....it's really there. Problem is the consumer spending is not. Beside that point, these areas are WAY overlooked, even ignored, in the global media. A lot of people do not even know about what goes on in the tech industry down here. AOL is having a very hard time down here. Not because of people not being able to signup for their services, but more from the large markets created from other ISPs.

Please do!!! We haven't got nearly the amount of info on the Spanish speaking part of the world that we should have.

Spanish was probably the best because of the overlap of regions (Europe, USA, Central & S. America). We had great results!

One of our biggest challanges was getting proper translation. Individual keywords were bad enough, let alone actual web site content.

"Currently , We had designed the new prouducts which it is "ZZZZZZ". we are willing to provide you for"
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I think with translation you can take two approaches.

With the first the translator is doing a literal translation of your words. This is a fast approach but many of the fine points of a language can be lost.

The more accurate way of translation is where the translator takes the time to study and understand your industry or company and not only translates the words but also translates the meaning behind the words.

This is a much more accurate way to translate and ensures that what you want to say is understood.

This also can take into account cultural differences in meaning.

But there is one further step, which normal translators cannot provide and that is real copywriting. This goes beyond both literal and idiomatic translations and requires the expensive services of a professional copywriter. Heini touched upon that in this discussion: [webmasterworld.com...]

Culture is complicated, and this is probably the hardest thing to represent on a Web site, requiring a combination of background research, localization, and aesthetic sensibility.

The most popular internationalized Web sites are not simply translated versions of an existing site, but are distinct sites developed and maintained within the country itself.

Not only is locally produced content far more effective than translated copy, but the local site also has an appropriate cultural look and feel—it takes into account idiomatic differences in languages, and political, social, and moral issues, along with religion and history. If you want to compete effectively in a foreign market, you will need a high-quality local site.

>This also means that you are going to need the use a good copywriter.

Don't forget that you also need to be able to respond to inquiries in these languages. IMO this is something that is often forgotten, and suddenly the mails start comming in but nobody can answer them. It's common sense but not common pratice.

Ooooooh! That's a tough one, impossible to organize for most. So I recommend this approach, high up on the translated page, border around it, highlighted or whatever:

This page has been translated into your language as a courtesy and convenience to you. We regret that we are unable to communicate with you in other languages than x, y and z. The management.

Having gone through the process I would encourage companies considering this to;

Proceed Cautiously, Only globalize if it makes sense. Globalizing too fast can quickly get your company into hot water.

Make sure you have a sound business strategy. It's important to weigh return on investment against the cost of localizing a Web site and the potential growth.

You should not do anything in business that costs money unless you think you're going to get money out of it.

Make sure that as part of your strategy you include the cost of support and other issues like taxes, legal issues, etc.