NO NO NO I was reading soloseo and this quote I disagree with and agree with !
One aspect of doing International SEO is having your content available in other languages. Hiring a translator to translate your blog is cost prohibitive for most bloggers, running $50-$250 for each language per post
yes the cost can be prohibitive, but don’t call in translators all my experience tell’s me bring in an Interpreter
Dave say’s “he had been bloody stupid”
Translated by Google “Hij was bloedige dom”
Joost Says “hij was ontzettend stom geweest”
Translated by Google : He had been extremely stupid
you see the Dutch tend not to use bloody the way the Bloody English do ..
DaveN
11 Comments
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- 2
I agree with that.
Also… I do believe you fail to see the actual difference between a human translator and a human interpreter.
*takes away two of Dave’s cookies*
- 3
brewgin : did you read the seosolo article.. it’s about using translating software not humans..
I was thinking more on the lines of Linguistic typology in Interpretation than straight translation
takes 1 cookie back
- 4
hm… i am doing international SEO for travel related site. Since we are dealing mainly in Croatia, Germany, Italy UK and Slovenia, i acquire students to translate texts. They cost round 3 EUR per hour (4 USD) and i just check onsite after they are done. and still… this is not so cost-effective
btw. google translator or babelfish will give you more trouble than guy from India
- 5
Not just that, try translating ‘achterlijke gladiool’ or ’stupid wanker’…
Anyway, Joost’s translation in incorrect, too.
- 6
I’m not sure where Michael got $50 – $250 per post from. How long are his posts? Or is he using university language professors to translate for him!
Perhaps we’re in for a rude awakening if we ever go down the international route!
- 7
@ Dave:
Aye, translation software is crapsticks. Funny, but not useful for professional purposes. Definitely agree.In your post however, you don’t specify this and make it sound as if we should hire a human interpreter over a human translator.
@ Ulco:
How is Joost wrong exactly? It’s pluperfect tense, which is fine. Technically his translation isn’t incorrect as far as I can tell, but there are various translations for that sentence, which could all be considered valid depening on your choice of words.
@ anyone:
Interpreters ‘translate’ speech on the fly. Translators ‘translate’ written copy in whatever form it may be.So you definitely need a translator, not an interpreter, to translate your website, but make sure it’s a human one and not a piece of software. A good human one at that.
If you want to have your website translated cheaply:
Get some fourth year translation students from the country of your target language (or third, when lacking fourth) to do their traineeship with your company.
Give them a computer, a text editor with spelling check for the target language, compensation for living expenses and they’re good to go.
You can exploit them 40 hours a week, pay them… oh lets say 500 pounds a month and you get your website translated for about 3 GBP an hour by someone who at least has a good understanding of translation principles and pretty much needs you to give them a good evaluation.They all need a traineeship, often one in their second language’s country, so abuse that fact.
It’s surprisingly easy to get some people that way and they have an added bonus of picking up some valuable SEO copywriting skills that they won’t get at uni.
*steals a chocolate chip off Dave’s cookie that has exchanged hands twice now*
(you can have it now) - 8
Forget translation students.
I always found that exchange students with a strong interest in the topic who are being taught in English, but in a university here in Poland do a much better job, translating into their native language.
Thus I can find a German programming exchange student to translate English > German but at Polish rates.
Polish rates are typically $10 to $20 for a 400 word page, whether they are qualified or not.
- 9
I’m still have trouble getting my content writers to produce good english subject matter. It would seem that when you outsource content you need to jump through a shitload of hoops to find good english at a price that would not make Mr James Packer break out in a cold sweat.
- 10
Come on guy’s your the experts , anwers/ opinions please =
Re Jonathan | April 17th 2008 Natural link building clusters of generic TLD’s supporting one area of commerce ? - 11
Dave,
You and the boys here perfectly know that there is more than a simple translation for International SEO. Translation is just the tip of the iceberg.
While Web Globalization companies focused on clickability factors like conversion and copywriting most of them completely disregard findability factors like SEO.
Using 4th year translation students is not enough for proper translation of technical information like DNS stuff or matters of the judicial system. They don’t have the expertise in those fields to do a “context translation.” Nonetheless, translation students can do an ok job if proper research is done combined with the right methodology and adequate tools. But that equals time and money. At the end we all know that we get what we pay for.
It’s ludicrous to even compare translation students to professional translators. It’s like comparing DaveN with some SEO wanna-be from x-country that charges $10/hour. Or like thinking that Google will rely on US universities to do the translation of their products in more than 40 languages. Come on!
If it were so simply to just give translation students a computer and software to exploit their talents, then, why companies and independent professional translators invest in Translation Memories (TM) and other productivity tools that ultimately will benefit their clients in the future by reducing the number of words to be translated instead of hiring college students?
Add to that combo the fact that clueless translation students don’t even understand basic concepts of SEO, let’s say keyword research, much less do SEO copywriting. Yes, you can coach them, but again it’s cost/benefit. At the end, you’ll spend more time, money and efforts teaching someone how to do proper SEO copywriting that will leave after 1 semester.
Dont worry about it Dave you can’t speak properly anyway:)
Doug