Just How Good Are Translator Plugins?


Martin from gHacks is recruiting human translators to convert his site into other languages so that he can extend the reach of his site. I’ve been relying on the troublesome Angsuman Translator plugin to automatically perform the same task on my site, but I’ve never really stopped to think about how accurate the translations are.

Can anyone tell me how accurate my translated pages are? Unfortunately I can’t do this myself as my language skills are awful as I didn’t pay a lot of attention in my French lessons as at my school taking a language at GCSE was optional, and I always knew I would take a second science.

I guess a second question is, do you use the translation service on this site?


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About the Author: Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University.He also writes for Windows 7 News, Windows 8 News and One Tip A Day.

  • Well I can tell you how accurate the German translation is. The only good thing I can say about it is that you do understand what the article is about. You can get an idea when you translate the article into another language and then back into English. This is your above text:

    Martin of gHacks is a drawing in human translator its place of assembly into other languages converts, so that he can extend the range of its place of assembly. I of' VE, which is of the plug-in type on the unpleasant Angsuman a translator is based, in order to accomplish the same task automatically on my place of assembly, but, I' of VE never really stopped, over to think on, how exactly the translations are. Can someone explain to me, how exactly my translated sides are? Unfortunately I CAN' t do this, there my language abilities are so terrible, a I didn' to t payment quantity of attention in my French lessons, also as at my school, the one language was takes GCSE, alternatively released, on and I always knew that I would take a second science. I estimate that, you use a second question the translation service at this place of assembly are?
  • That's awful!!!

    Can anyone translate the translated pages for other languages back into English for comparison?

    I guess at least the plugin gets my pages listed on foreign search engines, but I'm begining to think that's pointless if all the reader sees is gibberish.
  • Christian Arno
    Hi Everton,

    Like quite a few machine translation tools, this one is not great. When I checked the Italian, it broke up the verb phrase 'is recruiting' into 'is+recruitment', and it also didn't manage to find translations for phrases like 'I've'. Having said that, it does serve a purpose - it is free and a non-English speaker could understand some elements they wouldn't understand otherwise. So it probably is worthwhile to have it there, just in case.
    I think we're going to see some significant narrowing of the gap (both in cost and quality) between machine translation tools like Babelfish and professional human translation services like Lingo24 (hands up, I'm part of Lingo24) over the next couple of years. This should come from the fusion of sophisticated statistical translation tools with the professional translation process. Watch this space!

    Cheers

    Christian
  • Hmmmmmm
    The funny thing is that it doesn't translate to Arabic at all!!
    And it gives page not found!
    is this kind of racism? :P

    Anyway, I checked your translator once, I think, and as Martin said...you MAY get the idea of the post but not the real idea!

    Hey man, why not asking your writers to write in their language too, if they are not English!

    I don't know if this well affect your Adsense accuracy, but it would be a good idea!
    Just do some analysis to your geographic traffic, and do translate your post to that language.
  • The Worldlingo pages seem to be no longer working - try the arabic version again as I've switched back to Google's engine.

    I'd love to get human translators, but the problem I would have is how would I get 1500 old posts translated? I'd need an army of translators!
  • Well, Google considers you as a spyware
    ... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.

    How come it sees you as a spyware this fast!
    Do you have a traffic peak these hours?!
    So a lot of people are trying to translate via google?!

    I’d love to get human translators, but the problem I would have is how would I get 1500 old posts translated? I’d need an army of translators!

    Why don't you first start to translate the most popular articles, and then every new article would be translaed.
    Old-non important- articles can be worked on them later
  • How come it sees you as a spyware this fast! Do you have a traffic peak these hours?! So a lot of people are trying to translate via google?!


    That was pretty fast! I haven't had the Google translator on for a while because of this problem. I think what has happened is a lot of people have been clicking the flags because of this post. Still, it should be able to handle more than one hours worth of traffic......

    Why don’t you first start to translate the most popular articles, and then every new article would be translaed. Old-non important- articles can be worked on them later


    nice idea. My top 10 posts account for about 5-7% of traffic and my top 25 probably about 10%.

    Do you want to do the arabic pages? I'll offer the same deal as Martin. If anyone is interested in taking on other languages then let me know.
  • Well, 10-25 posts is not a big deal, and I can handle them, but there`s something you should know!

    Adsense for content is not supported yet for Arabic language, so I don't know if you may get banned by showing Adsense in your Arabic translated pages!

    Also note that, google may have no problems with such translate if your primary language is english(supported).

    Anyway, is it really worth the translation?!
    First do you get significant amount of traffic from arabic regions?!
    Second, I don't think that Arabic users are really interested in such articles, unfortunately. :(
    Just check these links and you`ll know what I mean
    1st link
    2nd link
  • I bought the same plugin as you did, Everton. In fact, I just deactivated it today because I read the following post at Earners Blog.

    I'm losing a lot of pull in the SERPs because I have over 9,000 pages in Google, yet my search engine traffic is pathetic, a bit over 300 uniques a day. So I'm trying something new.
  • I bought the same plugin as you did, Everton. In fact, I just deactivated it today because I read the following post at Earners Blog.


    thanks for the link. I've just read the same post and come to the same conclusion. Every point made made sense, especially given how poor the translations are which means the robots can’t put them into context.

    All that's happening is Google is seeing 'crap content' which because it can't index it properly, is bringing down a site's overall relevancy. Which then has a detrimental effect on the English pages!

    Wow, it's amazing what you can learn in 5 minutes - Thanks TJP.

    I really need to read up more on keyword density etc. For instance, what pages should I exclude from robots etc?
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