A friend wants to publish his writings in English and German so he bought identical domain names, one .com the other .de. It seems (to me) that embedding a Google Translate toolbar is a more practical and sustainable solution, but I’m curious to know if there are any valid reasons for using duplicate sites that I’m overlooking?
Todd
http://xiiro.com
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I would think that he would get twice as much SEO mojo by having two separate sites - purely because the content is different - at least textually.
Of course 2 identical sites would be bad for his mojo.
Not saying it is easier to have 2 sites - definitely not - but it does remove the possibility of GT getting it wrong. But that may not be a critical factor.
D
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There’s a difference between translation and transliteration - true
translation has to do with expressing comparable ideas across language and
culture. What Google Translate does is more of finding comparable words
(you should see how badly it mangles Arabic to English). Yet, it can often
give you the gist of what is being said, and if that is good enough then
it’s good enough.
However, if you really need to speak to this non-english market, I think
it’s important to do so in a purposeful and non-clumsy way. The French
speaking people I know are extremely sensitive that way, so I imagine
others may be as well. In those cases, it definitely isn’t enough to crib
the translation - you must and should have content specific to that
audience.
Btw, I’ve been secretly working on my first multi-language site… so the
technical issues as well as the cultural ones have been on my mind. That
said, I am currently reviewing the translation menu as an option for my
client who is just taking that first step to be visible to multicultural
users - which means I’m just learning this stuff as well.
A friend wants to publish his writings in English and German so he bought
identical domain names, one .com the other .de. It seems (to me) that
embedding a Google Translate toolbar is a more practical and sustainable
solution, but I’m curious to know if there are any valid reasons for using
duplicate sites that I’m overlooking?
–
–
Ernie Simpson
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Thanks guys. Good stuff.
My concern is that he’s underestimating the amount of work it is to maintain 2 sites. Three actually, if you count his professional site.
Todd
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Taking this a bit further …
I’m mentioning this because I know many of you build multi-lingual sites with a CMS, and perhaps some of you opt for using (or require) separate domains instead of a translation service for the very reason Ernie mentioned below. For those people this might be of interest.
I’ve been thinking about ways to streamline the process of managing multi-lingual sites when using separate domains hosted on the same server. Then I vaguely remembered reading an article on doing this very thing with the MODX CMS http://modx.com. In short, multiple sites (as many as like) can be managed from a single MODX installation, just log in once and edit any number of sites without jumping back and forth between multiple CMS installations. Talk about making it easier for your clients, and possibly yourself. I’m sure this is possible with other full-featured CMS but I’m focusing on MODX.
I’m trying to find the article to determine what limitations are involved but when I learn more I’ll post the results should anyone be interested.
Todd
There’s a difference between translation and transliteration - true
translation has to do with expressing comparable ideas across language and
culture. What Google Translate does is more of finding comparable words
(you should see how badly it mangles Arabic to English). Yet, it can often
give you the gist of what is being said, and if that is good enough then
it’s good enough.However, if you really need to speak to this non-english market, I think
it’s important to do so in a purposeful and non-clumsy way. The French
speaking people I know are extremely sensitive that way, so I imagine
others may be as well. In those cases, it definitely isn’t enough to crib
the translation - you must and should have content specific to that
audience.Btw, I’ve been secretly working on my first multi-language site… so the
technical issues as well as the cultural ones have been on my mind. That
said, I am currently reviewing the translation menu as an option for my
client who is just taking that first step to be visible to multicultural
users - which means I’m just learning this stuff as well.A friend wants to publish his writings in English and German so he bought
identical domain names, one .com the other .de. It seems (to me) that
embedding a Google Translate toolbar is a more practical and sustainable
solution, but I’m curious to know if there are any valid reasons for using
duplicate sites that I’m overlooking?–
–
Ernie Simpson
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I did build several sites (with Expressionengine) that carry more than one language. Each of them only one domainname, because for my clients it was not Google but service to their visitors that was important. And then it’s rather easy to split a site into several parts. The language-choice-trigger mostly a small icon (usually a flag) In the back- end the editors could fill in all the needed textfields. In case they left out content in a (translated) field the default language content would show to avoid a broken site. One could make rather complex content with this methode, with metatags in several languages, complete navigation menus and contact info that changes. Even background images, if needed. Problem with so many options is that delevering content for the site demands much more work.
And indeed, EE does know the trick of managing several domains from one build. If on one server. Problem is hosting. Here in Europe it can be difficult to buy a domain in another country.
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That’s pretty damn cool. From what I’ve learned so far it sounds very similar to how MODX does it too.
I agree that some extremely sophisticated and impressive functionality could be accomplished this way which would be great for the client. So much more efficient than maintaining multiple CMS installations.
Thanks atelier.
Todd
I did build several sites (with Expressionengine) that carry more than one language. Each of them only one domainname, because for my clients it was not Google but service to their visitors that was important. And then it’s rather easy to split a site into several parts. The language-choice-trigger mostly a small icon (usually a flag) In the back- end the editors could fill in all the needed textfields. In case they left out content in a (translated) field the default language content would show to avoid a broken site. One could make rather complex content with this methode, with metatags in several languages, complete navigation menus and contact info that changes. Even background images, if needed. Problem with so many options is that delevering content for the site demands much more work.
And indeed, EE does know the trick of managing several domains from one build. If on one server. Problem is hosting. Here in Europe it can be difficult to buy a domain in another country.
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