If you want to reach a global audience (and why wouldn’t you?) then the easiest way to appeal to more people is to provide an easy way for them to see your website in their own language. Although auto-translation tools do not provide a particularly good translation, often the actual intended meaning is lost, they do provide a reader with a general idea of the message you are sending out to the world. Plus, many people are now aware that language translation tools are not accurate, so do not judge you for using a slightly inaccurate tool to translate your website.
So, how is it done? There are several tools on the market, however the latest, and possibly the greatest, comes from the Google camp. Once again Google have provided a clean and ad free tool that is easy to install and works of a fast server. Here is the information you are really after, straight from the horses mouth:
“How long would it take to translate all the world’s web content into 50 languages? Even if all of the translators in the world worked around the clock, with the current growth rate of content being created online and the sheer amount of data on the web, it would take hundreds of years to make even a small dent.
Today, we’re happy to announce a new website translator gadget powered by Google Translate that enables you to make your site’s content available in 51 languages. Now, when people visit your page, if their language (as determined by their browser settings) is different than the language of your page, they’ll be prompted to automatically translate the page into their own language. If the visitor’s language is the same as the language of your page, no translation banner will appear.” Source: googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/09/translate-your-website-with-google.html
I shall install it here on Webologist, and then in a few weeks check the logs to see if we have found some new international readers.
