Greg Sterling recently posted an article on Search Engine Land about Google's launch of Cross-Language Information Retrieval (CLIR) search services.
Greg states "Search queries will be entered in the native language, translated into English and run against Google's index. Any retrieved pages/sites will then be translated from English back into the native language".
As anyone who has ever used Google's translation tool knows, machine driven translations often butcher multi-word strings. If I were promoting an English site and wanted visitors in other languages to be able to find my site through these new CLIR powered search services I would discover what phrases people are searching for in each of my target languages and what English phrase Google translator returns for these queries.
If the English translation of the original query makes sense grammatically it may be worth it to use Google's translation of the native language phrase as one of my targeted key phrases.
Of course, for anyone wanting to get a foot hold with readers whose native language is not English I would recommend just translating your content. I like to use Click2Translate for most of my translation needs.
If you don't have the time or the resources to translate your content, optimizing for CLIR may be a good alternative.
Showing posts with label translation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label translation. Show all posts
Thursday, May 17, 2007
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Translating a Website - Keyword Analysis
If you've ever translated a website you probably know that it is at the very least a daunting process. I've been through this several times and have a few pieces of information which should prove helpful related to keyword analysis and translation. Getting this part right in advance can save you a lot of headaches down the line and can improve the overall quality of your translations.
Keyword Analysis
Don't trust your translation company to translate your primary keywords. Many keywords which may be specific to your industry may still be used as the English word vs. what ever translated version your translation company provides. There's nothing more frustrating than finding out you translated primary keywords only to see your foreign customers use the English version once you've launched your site.
1. Make a list of primary keywords or difficult to translate keywords (industry specific terms) and translate just those terms into your target languages.
2. Perform searches on the English and translated terms in the appropriate language specific search engine (nl.google.com, de.google.com, etc.). Make sure you limit the search for pages in the target languages.
3. Use a machine translation tool to translate these pages into English. Review the site and see how the site uses the word in context and make note of whether they use the English or translated version of the word. Also see if the site is relevant to your business and if they're using the words in the same context.
4. Poll your customers, send an email announcement, create a blog post, or create a translation wiki. A little debate and feedback can go a long way in helping you decide what the best version of a term is.
5. Buy PPC on both the English term and the suggested translations in a new campaign. Limit that campaign to just your target language. Start counting impressions on your ad. Don't worry too much about translating your ad or website at this point (especially in western languages). English ads and websites on foreign language search engines are quite common. This is by far the most accurate way to measure the use of words in a specific language.
6. Make sure to keep an eye out for "anglicized" translations. Sometimes neither the literal translation nor the English version is used. In these cases your customers may be adding language specific extensions to English words to make them easier to understand when reading. Ask your translation company to check for anglicized versions of your keywords.
7. Provide a glossary to your translation company for hard to translate words so they're aware of the exact meaning of specific words. Make sure to include any specific research you've already done.
If you follow these steps you can get a good idea in advance as to whether the literal translation, English version, or anglicized version of a keyword is used. This will prove very valuable to your PPC and SEO campaigns, and will greatly improve the quality of your translations overall.
Keyword Analysis
Don't trust your translation company to translate your primary keywords. Many keywords which may be specific to your industry may still be used as the English word vs. what ever translated version your translation company provides. There's nothing more frustrating than finding out you translated primary keywords only to see your foreign customers use the English version once you've launched your site.
1. Make a list of primary keywords or difficult to translate keywords (industry specific terms) and translate just those terms into your target languages.
2. Perform searches on the English and translated terms in the appropriate language specific search engine (nl.google.com, de.google.com, etc.). Make sure you limit the search for pages in the target languages.
3. Use a machine translation tool to translate these pages into English. Review the site and see how the site uses the word in context and make note of whether they use the English or translated version of the word. Also see if the site is relevant to your business and if they're using the words in the same context.
4. Poll your customers, send an email announcement, create a blog post, or create a translation wiki. A little debate and feedback can go a long way in helping you decide what the best version of a term is.
5. Buy PPC on both the English term and the suggested translations in a new campaign. Limit that campaign to just your target language. Start counting impressions on your ad. Don't worry too much about translating your ad or website at this point (especially in western languages). English ads and websites on foreign language search engines are quite common. This is by far the most accurate way to measure the use of words in a specific language.
6. Make sure to keep an eye out for "anglicized" translations. Sometimes neither the literal translation nor the English version is used. In these cases your customers may be adding language specific extensions to English words to make them easier to understand when reading. Ask your translation company to check for anglicized versions of your keywords.
7. Provide a glossary to your translation company for hard to translate words so they're aware of the exact meaning of specific words. Make sure to include any specific research you've already done.
If you follow these steps you can get a good idea in advance as to whether the literal translation, English version, or anglicized version of a keyword is used. This will prove very valuable to your PPC and SEO campaigns, and will greatly improve the quality of your translations overall.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)