Translating language of website?

I have a website which is in English, I am thinking of translating the site into a few other languages and creating sites in these countries, but have a few questions on what the best way to do this would be.

I am planning on buying my current domain name but translated. So it would be the 'the translated name' .com Would this be best rather than buying .es .se .it etc? Or would I be better off getting location specific domains?

I have read that Google does not count translated content as duplicate content, can anyone confirm this?

Finally, would I be better of keeping all of the content on one domain and creating sub folders for each translated version? e.g. domainname.com/es/ domainname.com/fr/ etc.

I like the idea of keeping everything sperate on their own domain and maybe resticting some features for the sites in other languages, is this pheasable?

Sorry if this is in the wrong section.

Thanks.

 

I have one site that I have translated in to two more languages and I did it by registering two new domain names, just to keep a domain name in this "translated language". Actually those translated sites are performing really good any they are interlinked with the original language site. Of course I don't know what would happen if I chose sub folder strategy, but I am happy with the results I am having right now

 

Thanks Toss!

did you got for all .com domains? Or country specific (.fr .es etc) Does it make a difference?

Thanks

 

Hi,

Just look how some giants make. They have separate domain names for their website on different languages. For example: last.fm. Better using .es domain name and spanish hosting for spanish version of your website

 

Thanks Dobra - is it possible to own .es. .fr domains without being based in these countries?

Also I still have the issue as to whether I should translate the name of the site first then add .es surely I would benefit from having the relevant keyword translated.

But if I were to translate the name, all the domains would be differnt so I could maybe just do all .com...

Still unsure as to which route to take so any other input appreciated.

 

rent a translators good at more languages' better than google or bing translates

 

i think you could go with subdomains or if the keywords differ it might help to also translate them but what I also would consider is the fact if my script is able to deal with different domains. Wordpress for example will create a certain structure on it's own using WPML. In this case you will also have to change the url's via htaccess in bulk I guess.

Let me know if you are in need of german translation going with a translater like google is not very professional and they tend to create senseless combinations of words

 

Google translation is pretty good. A combination of that and a friend that speaks the native tongue can help. Reading through blocks of translated text and making corrections is much easier than translating text raw from one language to another.

 

Basicly for a native speaker there is no major difference - atleast this is my expirience

 

I beg to differ... Google translator sometimes spits out some pretty nasty content. I would be careful to just copy and paste what Google translator generates. Language grammatical structure is completely different from language to language.

I see two scenarios fashio51:

If your main purpose revolves around SEO, a translator tool like Google's will definitely help you.

If you rely on human readers to convert anything, you need to get a translator that know what he or she is doing.

Google translator is good or ok for short sentences. If you paste an article, you'll get misleading content.

Regarding domains... it is only RELEVANT if the content is RELEVANT for the country you are targeting.

Hope it helps.

 

yes, when you translate the content, it become fresh and it target new people at different countries.

 

Thanks for the all the comments.

What do you mean by the above SpanishGuy? Do you mean it is only relevant to have specific domain prefix? e.g '.es' if the content is specific to that country?

I know there probably isnt a right or wrong answer to this but if you guys were in the same position what would you go for?

e.g. current site: hello.com (english)

for spanish go:

hello.es
or
hola.es
or
hola.com

 

Hmm , choose a new domain name with the new language !

 

Anymore suggestions?

Not sure what you meant by the comment above?

 

Definitely worth hiring a proper tranlation company, do not under any circumstances rely on Babel Fish or Google translate they will mangle your copy and native speakers of the translated language will laugh at your site. I worked at a company where we were writing a marketing app for a German client. The programmers used a translation tool for the word postcode. The translator split the word in two and used the German word for post as in lamp post. Clients weren't best pleased.

 

Yeah I will definitely be getting proper translation. May be in touch with a few people from here when I decide which languages and who I know who can do them.

Just need to decide which domains to purchase at the moment :/

 

Maybe talking to native speakers can help you as they will know if people are using the english word as keyword or a translated one

 

Thats good advice, will deffinetly look into that.

Still open for other suggestions/people personal opinions - has nobody done this before on here? What did you go for?

 

I think for this case location specific domains would be the best way, as Google in particular takes the location domain into consideration when ranking

 

I suggest go for subdomain, you might consider .com/fr, .com/jp or fr.sitename.com , jp.sitename.com
This make your site bigger and good for seo.
For the translation, don't use software, get a translator to meke the content more readable