This Google Webmaster Central Blog entry “Working with multilingual websites” by Xavier deMorales, Google Search Quality, is a little dated (March 19, 2010) but can help you to answer the, some think, ill-informed question “Can’t I just use Google to translate my website?”
The killer line is
“We recommend that you do not allow automated translations to get indexed. Automated translations don’t always make sense and they could potentially be viewed as spam”.
To make it is easy for you here’s the URL (or URI take your pick)
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2010/03/working-with-multilingual-websites.html
Spam from www.spam.com surely the world's best web address?
I’ve used this quote (correctly attributed) in presentations and that final word spam, finishes all conversation about using Google Translate.
We might all discuss what quality means but I can tell you most translation buyers will understand the word ‘spam’ (and they don’t confuse it with the ‘value for money’ tinned meat shown in the image to the left)!
But don’t just take this quote out of context (we all know the importance of context – snigger, wink, nudge, industry in-joke) the post has a lot more excellent information. I recommend you read it in its entirety, but if you need a short to-the-point response to the ‘Google Translate my website’, the above quote is excellent.
Happy hunting – and website translating!
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