Google Announces New Translator Gadget for Websites
Google is now giving webmasters the ability to prompt users for automatic translations of their pages. With the new website translator gadget, site owners can paste a short snippet of code into their websites and instantly increase their reach to up to 51 languages.
The gadget will automatically detect a user's preferred language, and if that user's language settings differ from the content on the gadget-enabled website, a frame will appear over the web page, prompting the user to click a button for instant translation of all text content.
In a post today on the official Google blog, these screenshots were used to illustrate the simple, streamlined process:
Of course, the new feature will only work as well as Google Translate, which project manager Jeff Chin admits is best used to let readers "get the gist" of a page. Still, giving webmasters control over how users see their pages - with minimal effort and no downloads on the user's part - will likely do a lot to expand both the reach of a given website and the breadth of information available to Internet users around the world.
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I think it's very interesting that this should come out a day or two after Facebook's announcement of their crowdsourced translations for websites. I think it shows Google is worried about facebook taking this "market" (speech marks used to indicate lack of revenue) away from them.
This gadget would be even better if after provided an automated translation, it gave the end user the ability to submit their corrections to that machine translation. That would help improve Google's automation and also be a form of crowdsourcing. Of course you'd need to be weary of have mechanisms built in to prevent spammers or haters from translating your content to something inappropriate or misleading.
I don't know why anyone competes with Google.. they own. They're networking with so many company/organizations they're already HUGE and growing exponentially on a daily basis.
What's the difference compared to the little gadget used in my site?
"This gadget would be even better if after provided an automated translation, it gave the end user the ability to submit their corrections to that machine translation."
Check out Worldwide Lexicon (worldwidelexicon.org); that's exactly what it does!
I always wanted such a thing on my site.
I am an ASP.NET developer and use the resources to access the language strings depending on the user preferred language.
Well, all translation had to be manually done.
This Google script is definitely going to rock!!!
Long Live Google!
Just found the translator when I logged into my site. Told me my site was in Philipino & offered to translate. Only problem? Looked like English to me.
Hit the translater; and yep, it was english:)
Freaking awesome. I've been really impressed with Google this past year. First, they make Google checkout a little more comparable to PayPal by adding their shopping cart in addition to the "buy now" button and "third party shopping cart integration".
Now they make it easier to reach different markets with their translation tools. I have a current project where I'll be utilizing both of these user friendly tools.
On each page you paste this snippet of code will display a header bar asking if you want to translate the page, Which I feel is a distarction for the users. (eg. for Jeeps Web )
I would prefer the old way of doing the translation with google (eg. Discover Sri Lanka )
Don't get me wrong. I love 99% of the google suff.
Well after using it for sometime it’s definitely a great improvement over the previous translator.
But I still don’t like the top bar that appears on each page.
It works great and produces text that are readable and keep the same subject and intention.
We implemented it on 2 sites: www.engago.com and www.LEADSExplorer.com for a limited number of languages (except French and German) that correspond to potential customer countries.
Maintaining the website in 3 languages (English, French and German) is already costly enough, the new Google Translate is the most affordable option to have additional languages.
Technical question:
Once a page is translated, the next time it happens much quicker. This seems to indicate that the translated page has actually been stored.
Will these translated pages be indexed by Google too?
Adding this semi-automatic translation is an interesting feature, but how does the translation actually read to a speaker of that language?
Presumably the translation is handled by the same engine as Google Translate. I recently blogged about this kind of machine translation at "Making Sense" (worldaccent.com/blog) and, more importantly, its dangers. It can be great for getting the gist of something, but is also often way off beam. Google state this quite openly, but it's worth thinking over.
If a user runs your website through Google translate, they know its at their own risk. If you have "provided" a translation, aren't you more responsible for what it says? As Bing Translator warns you every time you use it: "Automatic translation can help you understand the gist of the translated text but is no substitute for a professional human translator."
And, unless you speak the target language, how do you know if your website is being rendered in perfect prose or as unintelligible gibberish? If you care about what "you" are saying in translation, you're still best off sticking to a human translator.
Google will definitely going to rock everyone.I m eagerly wailing for it's welcome.
I have to agree with Jim--automatic translation is something businesses do at their own risk! Though this technology is not a bad idea for spreading the word on certain events or helping websites gain followers, when it comes to business, marketing, etc., these services are nothing but pure venom. I can't imagine an automatic translation helping boost business in the slightest.
Should anybody be interested, I delve deeper into the topic in one of my own blog posts which can be seen here: http://translation-blog.trustedtranslations.com/why-human-translators-still-have-a-job-2009-10-07.html. Enjoy!