A website translation company: why humans beat machines

When selecting a website translator there is only one effective option. And it’s that your website is translated by a website translation company. However much progress is being made in the field, effective machine translation is still just a dream. Machines can’t pick up the nuances a professional translator can. That’s why the only reliable website language translator is a professional translator.

A free website translation tool?

It’s tempting. For no or very little money, you can find a thousand apps that promise to translate your WordPress, translate your PrestaShop, etc. We’re sorry to disappoint you but… These apps don’t work. If something is free when it comes to translation, it’s because it’s based on machine translation, not professional translators.

All these apps that advertise as “the best website translation service”, “the ultimate way to translate your website” are just not useful. They translate your texts from one language to another by only using an algorithm. And that’s like using an answering machine to answer your phones.

You can use machine translation to start an interaction, but it soon gets complicated and you need human interaction.

 

Machines are not even close to human interaction

As much as some AI gurus predict it, it hasn’t happened yet. Machines are still our town fool. And let’s hope they continue to be just that. Just ask Sarah Connor… Language involves complicated semantics. And because it changes from one language to another, it can’t be translated literally. And so machines can’t understand.

It may seem enough to say that most words have more than one meaning and that context is needed to understand them in most cases. The context in which we speak has too many variables for a machine to understand and manage all of them.

And it’s not just different meanings, but also the tone you use when communicating (like irony and humour for example) and cultural aspects that are different in every language.

 

Google knows about machine translation issues

Of course, ladies and gentlemen. What we tell you is not news for a company like Google, who, paradoxically, offers its own machine translation tool. They do know it. They know the tool very well and are surely aware that it can’t replace a human being, and thus a website translation agency.

Therefore, when it comes to SEO positioning on Google, using a machine website translation tool is counter-productive. Google itself is aware that these pages aren’t going to offer the best user experience! Because they contain many mistakes that are common when using machine translation. And they logically punish it.

 

The only effective way of translating your website is using a website translation company

As much as machine translation tools promise you wonders, using them is counter-productive. We recommend using the professional services of a website translation company. We understand the context, both yours and of the target language. As well as Google positioning that’s achieved with a proper SEO translation service!

Shall we talk?