5 ms·

> The best practice as of 2021 is to take your existing, best-performing content and get it professionally translated or re-written. Yeah because we've all got

> The best practice as of 2021 is to take your existing, best-performing content and get it professionally translated or re-written. Yeah because we've all got money to burn on hiring translators. Another example of small websites being eradicated from the [discoverable] Web.

TonyTrapp 5y ago
I have to admit that I have never seen a small website using auto-translated content. I see that more frequently on the content mills that noone wants, on Microsoft documentation (oh the horrors!) and most recently on various shopping websites that want to show you offers from other countries (ebay fails terribly at this). I don't think small website owners are in trouble, the big ones are.
- iggldiggl 5y ago
  > I see that more frequently on the content mills that noone wants Some of those Wikipedia-republishing SEO spam sites seem to take the English Wikipedia and then auto-translate that into other languages instead of directly mirroring each country's native Wikipedia. At least they're good for a laugh because whatever translation provider they're using still tends towards those hilariously literal translations that no longer happen that frequently with Google.
karatinversion 5y ago
I don't really understand this complaint. You are running a small website, and you want it to be promoted to users in another language, but you don't want to spend any resources in translating or localizing the content?
- mattowen_uk 5y ago
  Maybe I don't have the spare capital as I'm a fledgling start-up, but still want to be able to reach as many people as possible?
  - karatinversion 5y ago
    But do the people have any interest in seeing text that is machine translated without editing? MT is good, but you can still tell that test has gone through it; for me, reading it when I haven’t triggered the translating yourself elicits the same reaction as spam emails with obvious typos.
  - duskwuff 5y ago
    Maybe you should focus on targeting users who you can write high-quality content for, or invest in quality translations. Don't use machine translation as a crutch.
ghaff 5y ago
Machine translation (and transcription) is better than nothing--especially for personal use. But it's pretty mediocre at best. So if you publish it as finished material I'd expect it to be treated like any other low quality content. You don't get some special pass because you're a "small website."
numpad0 5y ago
Cheer Please vacate leave your location site almost it had been as it is. MT outputs aren't as good as it might look when applied twice, and often needs to be compared against original text to make out intention. They also "sound" robotic and creepy. Once I've encountered a bunch of product advertised as "applies delight scam". Make a guess at it.
- withinboredom 5y ago
  Thanks for your comment. I like it very much. It seems strange to me that people think that machine translated text is perfectly acceptable. Maybe people will appreciate it more after reading this post.
6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago
Users are sick of scale at all costs. Global scale with crappy service isn’t a birthright.

TonyTrapp 5y ago

I have to admit that I have never seen a small website using auto-translated content. I see that more frequently on the content mills that noone wants, on Microsoft documentation (oh the horrors!) and most recently on various shopping websites that want to show you offers from other countries (ebay fails terribly at this). I don't think small website owners are in trouble, the big ones are.

iggldiggl 5y ago
> I see that more frequently on the content mills that noone wants Some of those Wikipedia-republishing SEO spam sites seem to take the English Wikipedia and then auto-translate that into other languages instead of directly mirroring each country's native Wikipedia. At least they're good for a laugh because whatever translation provider they're using still tends towards those hilariously literal translations that no longer happen that frequently with Google.

karatinversion 5y ago

I don't really understand this complaint. You are running a small website, and you want it to be promoted to users in another language, but you don't want to spend any resources in translating or localizing the content?

mattowen_uk 5y ago
Maybe I don't have the spare capital as I'm a fledgling start-up, but still want to be able to reach as many people as possible?
- karatinversion 5y ago
  But do the people have any interest in seeing text that is machine translated without editing? MT is good, but you can still tell that test has gone through it; for me, reading it when I haven’t triggered the translating yourself elicits the same reaction as spam emails with obvious typos.
- duskwuff 5y ago
  Maybe you should focus on targeting users who you can write high-quality content for, or invest in quality translations. Don't use machine translation as a crutch.

ghaff 5y ago

Machine translation (and transcription) is better than nothing--especially for personal use. But it's pretty mediocre at best. So if you publish it as finished material I'd expect it to be treated like any other low quality content. You don't get some special pass because you're a "small website."

numpad0 5y ago

Cheer Please vacate leave your location site almost it had been as it is. MT outputs aren't as good as it might look when applied twice, and often needs to be compared against original text to make out intention. They also "sound" robotic and creepy. Once I've encountered a bunch of product advertised as "applies delight scam". Make a guess at it.

withinboredom 5y ago
Thanks for your comment. I like it very much. It seems strange to me that people think that machine translated text is perfectly acceptable. Maybe people will appreciate it more after reading this post.

6gvONxR4sf7o 5y ago

Users are sick of scale at all costs. Global scale with crappy service isn’t a birthright.