Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
Due to some budgetary restrictions, I am contemplating using Google's language translation service (which I find to be pretty darn good, although not 100 %), to translate one of my sites to another language - and port that code to another TLD, and host with another provider under an entirely different domain.
Aside from the obvious translation issues that could occur (and yes, be potentially harmful to the credibility of the site !), are there any other possible negative ramifications of doing this ? For example, is it known if Google uses its own language translation services when detecting duplicate content across sites ? Anything else negative come to mind ?
Thanks in advance.
Auto-translated content going to get me into trouble?
[webmasterworld.com...]
In addition to the quality issues discussed, the issues of Google's own terms and conditions is mentioned but not discussed extensively. It's not clear that Google would allow you to use its translations as the basis for site content.
It might be helpful to others contemplating using translations this way if you'd check on Google and let us know what you find.
The latter is almost certainly against TOS. In fact, I'd bet the barn on it.
You also need to think carefully about quality; if your text in one language is well formed in fairly short, simple sentences - no commas or colons - then it may get reasonable results.
But conversational text, poorly written text and jargon will all bomb in most languages.
As the other thread suggests, there are times when you can cope with poor translations; a warning may be enough. The fact you made an effort to reach those people may be well rewarded.
But for some sites, it could be the kiss of death, and it is certainly a risky way to do business.
[added] But no problem with duplicate content; another language is another story - for Google, at least.[/]
[edited by: Quadrille at 7:56 pm (utc) on Jan. 8, 2009]
I have to say that I was quite impressed with Google's translation services - I went from English to "X", and then from "X" to English, and I'd say it was 95 % +, and extremely readable. With Babelfish, this was certainly not the case.....more often than not, it was total gibberish.
In regard to dup content, what worries me, is that I am often scraped for content by foreign sites. So, my translation to another language may turn out to be "late to the party", and I may be the one accused of dup content. Just a thought.....
Remember that poor translations are often associated with spam/spywares/scams.
Google Terms of Service
[google.com...]
I can find clauses buried in the page which I think apply to translations, but I'm not a lawyer and wouldn't want to venture an interpretation.
