Machine translation is automatic translation from one language to another using a computer. The growth of e-commerce and globalization has created a need for fast, inexpensive translation methods. Machine translation is a viable and cost-effective alternative to traditional human translators.

Localization is much broader than just translation of text. It includes adapting materials to a particular culture's language, customs, and practices. Localization must consider graphics, differing legal systems and cultural context. Translation is only one part of the process.

	Site Translator	Web Site Localization
Translation of Graphical Elements
Translation of Hidden Text
Translation of Dynamic Content
Best Translation Accuracy
Hard Coded HTML
Translation of Content updates

Q. How accurate is Site Translator?

The ambiguity of language makes it difficult to have 100% accurate machine translation. Site Translator is the best available machine translation tool. We have created our own custom translation engine for your service, and our developers are constantly working to improve it.

Q. What is Translation Memory? How does it help me?

Translation Memory improves the accuracy of translation. Machine translation is not completely accurate because computers do not truly understand languages.

Each time a phrase is translated, the result is stored in the Translation Memory in the following manner:

English	Spanish
My brother's car	El coche de mi hermano

Translation Memory in Site Translator acts as a custom dictionary. You can edit and add phrases or customize existing records in the memory to improve the accuracy. For instance, in English “vessel” can mean “jar” or “ship” (or other things).

If your document is about ships, you can add the pairing “vessel - barco” to the English/Spanish Translation Memory.

Q. Why would I want to exclude words from translation?

There are words and phrases which should not be translated. One example is product names. When translating your web pages, you probably do not want to change the names of your products. Another is personal names. In most languages, some names are also words. People's names should never be translated.

Q. Why would I want to exclude the contents of certain tags from translation??

Sometimes on a multilingual page, certain content should not be translated. For instance, if you use your company's name as the page title, you will not want it translated. In that case, add the “title” tag to the list, and page titles will be retained in their original language.

Q. What languages are supported by Site Translator?

The languages currently supported by Site Translator are listed below:

Catalan
Czech
Dutch
Filipino
French
Hungarian
Italian
Polish
Spanish
Turkish

Croatian
Danish
English
Finnish
German
Indonesian
Norwegian
Portuguese
Swedish

We plan to add additional languages in the future.

Q. What procedure should I follow to translate a web site?

Site Translator works on local files. Make a copy of all the files from the web site on your local hard disk, or a network drive that can be mapped to a drive letter. Be sure to include all subfolders.

Q. What file types are translated by Site Translator?

Site Translator translates HTML, ASP.NET, ASCX, PHP, PHP3, and PHTML files.

Q. What happens to the links on a page when it is translated?

When a web site is translated, the links to other pages on that site are translated too. The links are properly retained on the web site. However, links to pages on different web sites are not translated.