Will allowing my content be translated for backlinks hurt my site?

[ubound]

I am thinking to strike a deal with some foreign websites: Let them translate some of my articles in exchange for dofollow backlinks to my original articles in English. I noticed that some of them do that anyway, so I thought I might as well encourage it myself and get nice links. There are some websites that are popular in countries like Greece and Indonesia with millions of visitors per month and they linked to me as a source before. So why not? Is it a bad idea?

[goodroi]

If you think it is a strong traffic generating idea to do this promotion, then go for it. If you are trying to gain easy links, I would think twice before doing it.

I wonder why not add translated content directly to your site so your site can serve visitors from other countries. You could be creating a duplicate content problem in the future by having translated content on other sites.

[lucy24]

why not add translated content directly to your site

The answer that comes to mind is “Because OP does not happen to have native speakers of Greek or Bahasa Indonesia on his staff”.

[goodroi]

Not sure why OP needs to have native speakers or any staff.

It is easy to outsource translation. It does cost money to translate but if there really is a significant demand for this content than it may very well justify the investment. Perhaps OP could better explain the particular details of their situation.

[keyplyr]

Doesn't seem worth the cost of losing control of your content, devaluing the articles because now they are no longer unique to your site, devaluing your branding because now your site is not the only place a user can go to read these articles.

[Leosghost]

It is easy to outsource translation.

And..if you don't speak the language..you can get back totally incomprehensible crap in the target language..and you'd never know..unless you send out your translation work to at least 3 totally separate translation services, and the run the output of each one of them through 3 other translation services ( not auto-trans ) from that target language back to the language you began with..

I see crap nonsensical translation every day, often on some of the most visited sites on the internet..any of us who speak, read, write more than one language have similar experiences..

[goodroi]

Did you just claim that translation requires hiring at least 6 totally separate translation services?

I guess you can do that. I can even think of certain situations you should do it that way when dealing with non-standard content or special circumstances. IMHO for many situations it is not a wise use of time or money to do it that way.

[Leosghost]

Accurate translation does, if you personally do not speak the language that you are requiring the translation to, because otherwise you'll have no idea how accurate ( or not accurate ) the translation(s) that you get back are..Both in relation to the vocabulary the grammar and whether or not ( ad is usually the case ) the sentence structure itself is unreadable..

I guess you can do that. I can even think of certain situations you should do it that way when dealing with non-standard content or special circumstances.

What is "non standard content", what is "standard content" ? )..

You say..

IMHO for many situations it is not a wise use of time or money to do it that way.

I'm curious, how many languages do you speak, read or write totally fluently in order to have this opinion..

I , as do my wife and son , actually work from time to time as a translator for the emergency and medical services here, and also for police and other governments services..We also help some "expats" who have used what they thought were accurate translation services to get out of the problems that those incompetent ( but how were their "victims" to know ? ) have got them into with the justice system or the tax authorities etc..We've also helped many webmasters ( some here at WebmasterWorld* ) behind the scenes ( for free )
with translating accurately their sites..
I'm speaking from decades of experience of translating..you are speaking from ?

*Please note we are waaay to busy to help anyone ATM..so no stickies on the subject..TIA :)

[Leosghost]

As could be expected, writing hurriedly about grammar and accuracy etc results in many typos, which as I say each time ( because I block script calls to Google that are made at WebmasterWorld ) I cannot then go back into the post to edit ..These "errors" would not be noticeable to anyone not a native English speaker, and would probably even slide by many of those native English speakers here to judge by some posts that I see here..If I were translating from language X to English here, these would be faults..If I made similar "faults" and left them in whilst translating from English to French ( for example ) they would not engender much confidence in any French readers of any websites that they were on..But, unless you were fluent in the language , you'd not know they were there, but your shopping carts abandon rates, or you bounce rate might very well reflect upon them.

Good translation is expensive..at least €50.00 per 250 words of "non tech", legal ( contracts , TOS etc ) translation can be double or triple that..

Incidentally this single post contains 194 words. So, around €40.00 or approximately $50.00 to translate :)

[Leosghost]

nb..We charge ( when we charge ) quite a bit higher than the rates which I mentioned above..

[goodroi]

If you want to hire 6 companies to do 1 job, go ahead. Maybe ... just maybe it can be done more efficiently.

IMHO a wise business person will have an open mind. There is rarely only one way to achieve something and there is often room for improvement.

[Leosghost]

Tell me how you personally , if you do not for example speak, read nor write French, would know if any English translation that you send to the usual areas for cheap translation ( India , the Philippines, south east Asia ( even including Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia etc )
was accurate or not..?

I personally do not send out translation to 6 companies..I don't need to..I know personally people who are totally fluent in any languages I might need..Indeed there is always "more than one way to skin a cat", but translation "on the cheap" is a false economy..

You personally have hired translators before ? How do you know that what they sent back to you was accurate ?

[goodroi]

Step 1 - Don't assume things
Step 2 - Don't hire cheap, low quality vendors
Step 3 - Repeat step 2

I am not sure you actually read my original message before responding to it or at least you didn't read the part where I clearly stated "It does cost money to translate".

[Leosghost]

I did indeed read it.
But, if you are not concerned about the cost?
Why baulk at the idea of using multiple translators to do "triple blind checking" each way for accuracy ?
I also noticed that you still have not answered any of my questions..which were also "clearly stated"..
Do you have experience of sending work out for translation ?
How do you know ( without using "double blind checking" or "triple blind checking" ) if what you get back is accurate..
If you haven't had translations done ?..then we have "experience" talking to "theory"..
One of us runs multiple multi language websites..with very many backlinks coming to them in many languages...
The other ?

[Leosghost]

Oh..and btw

I wonder why not add translated content directly to your site so your site can serve visitors from other countries.

is all well and good , until you get an enquiry in one of the languages that you used, but were not fluent in..at which point you ar going to need to get the enquiry and your reply, translated..

Implying that one is fluent or skilled in languages ( or any thing else ) is dangerous if one is not, as one is thus always open to exposure or ridicule..If the site is ecom, ( or even not ecom ) it can be very off putting to anyone who is bi-lingual who realises that the site owner is not fluent, it will make them doubt the site owners integrity..probably with good reason..

[Leosghost]

Again a typo a for "are"..( typing in in a hurry, work IRL to do )..

[lucy24]

If the site is ecom

If your site is ecom and you get an inquiry in a language you don't know, and you venture to reply to the inquiry via the low-budget translation mechanism of your choice, you deserve everything you get. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize ‘tasto’ and ‘chiave’ were different things” won’t cut it in court.

It’s the difference between reading English As She Is Spoke for its entertainment value ... and seriously attempting to learn English from it.

[Leosghost]

to ubound ( OP ) What you suggest about allowing the other sites to translate your articles my be useful for driving traffic..
The register.co.uk frequently cites articles in other languages in it's articles, and links out to them..when they do so they use the following kind of text, " article in French" or "article in German" or article in Russian" etc with the link..

So any one following the link is forewarned that they will be landing on a page in a different language..

if the sites that you are thinking of working with did this sort of "heads up" in their own languages when linking to you, and if they did not run "straight translations" of your content, but a "précis" or a "re-write" of your content with attribution and a link formed as those examples, that could be useful for you..and would not harm you..

Whether the search engines would give you "brownie points" for those backlinks isn't really important, ( they would not "ding you" ), what is important ( and SEOs forget or ignore this ) is that it would be useful for your visitors, the "indirect" ones that you might not have got otherwise..Interested traffic is always good for a site..

HTH :)