German Language Content

[jacobwissler]

I intend to post a German language version of a site (because the site owner feels this will be charming but will serve no real purpose). If I put the German translation on the American site, will it be considered duplicate content? If I launch a new site with the same name at .de will this be dup content? What is the most search engine friendly way to do this?

[sfowler]

The text is different, so it is not duplicate. If you are convinced that it is useless, then put it on the American site and save money. If you are hoping it will do something useful, then get a .de site. We used to have both on www.madur.at but the English section got nowhere. It is doing better now that they are split into www.madur.at and www.madur.com .

[sfowler]

If you want to try it out and see what happens, I have a spare .at subdomain that I can lend you for a bit.

[jacobwissler]

Thank you for the kind offer. If we figure out what we are going to do, I will let you know.

[sfowler]

where are you going to get the translation done? It makes a diference if it is Austrian, Swiss or German German.

[hawkwind dave]

Hi SFowler,
I was just thinking of you. A client wants us to build a multi lingual website, but I was wondering if the google 'translate this page' feature works for the Germans, French, Italian, etc, or is this only an english translation service?

Thanks in advance, Dave

[sfowler]

We do have the option, but you cannot understand the result! It also does not help you with searches since you have to know what to search for in the first place! It is basically useless, and does not work at all for frames sites. Try looking at www.madur.at and translating it!

[hawkwind dave]

Hi Simon, and thanks for the reply.

I had a feeling the translation would be next to useless.

On with selling a multi lingual website!

ker-ching!

;-) thanks again, Dave

[sfowler]

Even if the translation was good, it still does nothing for search, which is your main selling point. If I do not speak English I will not think of looking for a flue gas analyser when I need a Rauchgasanalysator. Just make sure that the translations are reasonable. Ther is already enough gibberish out there!

[paulhiles]

One of our main clients has four foreign language sites (including German) that we built based around their existing .com site.
The site traffic is fairly low for the foreign language sites, but as they're each assigned their relevant country domains, there's no duplicate content issue, and PR is reasonable for all sites, although not quite matching the PR6 of the .com site!

I was curious if anyone knew of the accuracy of so-called "language packs" for PHP. All my client's foreign language sites have had human translations of the original content added, are these necessarily better than a software generated alternative? I'm hoping the answer is "Yes" :o)

Paul

[sfowler]

They are very much better in German, assuming the translator knows what he is doing. Send me the URL and I will take a look.

[paulhiles]

Originally Posted by sfowler

Send me the URL and I will take a look.

I've sent the URL in a PM. I would appreciate any comments you may have.

Cheers!

Paul

[sfowler]

I've just taken a quick look, and it is not bad, aside from a few spelling mistakes, but you will never set the world alight with it. The keywords tag could use some pruning, and we will have to do some checking for keywords. I just can't see how I would find it.

[paulhiles]

Thanks for taking the time to look it over Simon. I have to admit, the metatags could be improved, many are repeated unnecessarily. Alt tags likewise, they're a bit samey.

One of the greatest difficulties I see is the actual process of accumulating inbound links. I can't understand German myself, so even a simple instruction would mean nothing to me. I guess that's where a multi-lingual SEO company comes into its own? :o)

Paul