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Why not just copy your website in a different language?

by Wouterv
7 replies
Hey guys, for a while i've been having a question on my mind: "Why not just copy your website in a different lanuage"?
With the coming of the internet, a lot of markets merged. Stuff like Facebook and Youtube are just universal and are so big that they present their website in every possible language. However, there are also a lot of smaller websites, like yourself. You are succesfull, but you are no Facebook or Youtube.

In the country where I live, the Netherlands, there are a lot of great websites virtually unknown. Take Grooveshark ( listening to free music online ) for example, literally nobody I've talked to ( and I speak with a LOT of people ) knows about this website, but when I refer them to it, they absolutely LOVE it.

Wouldn't it be handy for (in this case) Grooveshark to have a Dutch version of the website? And a Dutch entrepreneur who advertises,translates etc everything on his own costs/time? And then they just 20/80 or 50/50 share the revenue. That way Grooveshark get's extra revenue and the entrepreneur also get's some cash. Besides, since the entrepreneur works for it's own money, he is motivated to promote it well and make it a succes ( after all he had faith that this website would succeed in the Netherlands ).


I approached a lot of websites, asking them to just copy it in Dutch, since I was 100% sure it would make a lot of extra revenue.
But they just turned my offer down or did not even respond.

Do you think it is smart to expand in different countries?


Thank you for reading,

- Wouter
#copy #language #website
  • Profile picture of the author Corey Geer
    Grooveshark has an Alexa rank of 1,043... I think a few people know about it.

    In order to make a successful version of another language, you have to manually transcribe it.

    I'm guessing you're talking about going to Google Translate or some translation website and copy/paste the website information into it and hitting enter. This produces some of the most jumbled garbage that makes no sense. Those companies paid a ton of money to have the programming work around the language and how the information is displayed and to have all of the information formatted to a specific language.

    It's not as simple as just copying a website into another language. Copy/paste a language is about as useful as spinning articles.

    Corey
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    • Profile picture of the author Wouterv
      Originally Posted by Corey Geer View Post

      Grooveshark has an Alexa rank of 1,043... I think a few people know about it.

      In order to make a successful version of another language, you have to manually transcript it.

      I'm guessing you're talking about going to Google Translate or some translation website and copy/paste the website information into it and hitting enter. This produces some of the most jumbled garbage that makes no since. Those companies paid a ton of money to have the programming work around the language and how the information is displayed and to have all of the information formatted to a specific language.

      It's not as simple as just copying a website into another language. Copy/paste a language is about as useful as spinning articles.

      Corey
      Thanks for your reply.

      Maybe Grooveshark is an outdated example, it was a while back when I had these brain-spins.
      Nevertheless, I was not referring to just trowing it in the translater machine, as you ( hopefully ) read in what I wrote, I talked about letting a ( in this case ) Dutch entrepreneur open this market to the Netherlands. He would not just translate it, but also promote it etc. Meaning he would reach a lot more audience then when the company would just have 1 version ( in English ). The entrepreneur could in this case then make (minor) changes to the website to fit the geographic scope of the Netherlands. But also adapts to the Dutch consumer behaviour.
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      • Profile picture of the author Corey Geer
        Originally Posted by Wouterv View Post

        Thanks for your reply.

        Maybe Grooveshark is an outdated example, it was a while back when I had these brain-spins.
        Nevertheless, I was not referring to just trowing it in the translater machine, as you ( hopefully ) read in what I wrote, I talked about letting a ( in this case ) Dutch entrepreneur open this market to the Netherlands. He would not just translate it, but also promote it etc. Meaning he would reach a lot more audience then when the company would just have 1 version ( in English ). The entrepreneur could in this case then make (minor) changes to the website to fit the geographic scope of the Netherlands. But also adapts to the Dutch consumer behaviour.
        Well of course it's beneficial to market your website to other languages which opens up the opportunity that your website presents but the problem is, it costs a lot of money to do this.

        I'm not talking about those $1/Hour foreign people who can translate your site (which, I can just imagine the amazing quality :rolleyes but people who translate sites and do the programming work around that actually works cost a lot of money and time.

        So of course it's a good idea for any company that has the budget which will allow it.
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  • Profile picture of the author contentwriting360
    Banned
    In order to make a successful version of another language, you have to manually transcribe it.
    This produces some of the most jumbled garbage that makes no sense.
    Fixed these two for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author Wouterv
    Originally Posted by Wouterv View Post

    a Dutch entrepreneur who advertises,translates etc everything on his own costs/time? And then they just 20/80 or 50/50 share the revenue. That way Grooveshark get's extra revenue and the entrepreneur also get's some cash.
    There would not incur any extra costs.
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  • Profile picture of the author oneself
    Am curious about this too? It is a similar model to franchising or licensing. The US site does not incur any costs (no work on their part), just potential gains. Curious why sites would turn down such proposals.
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  • Profile picture of the author seasoned
    Translating to another language may be costly! FIRST, if it is a program, DOES it handle different locales? Does it handle different logic at some points(for taxes, fees, disclaimers, exclusions, etc)? Do they provide any needed shipping to the other areas? Are there licensing or legal concerns about the products? Do the product definitions have the right fields? Can they do/display currency conversion?

    In most cases, with the small sites you mentioned, most of the answers to the above questions are NO!!!!!!!

    IF they are all YES, THEN you need a trusted person, or group of people, willing to do the translation, etc....

    So it is FAR more involved than you may think.

    BTW Google translate is JUNK for this, and illegal! If a product is illegal in a given country, for example, NO translation program would help! HOW would it translate "sales tax"? What of fixed shipping charges? HOW would it know the available SKUs, languages, and media for the product? How would it EVEN know the currency? Australians, Canadians, Americans, etc... all use "dollars" and may be referring to ANY of them, for example.

    You could EASILY see that if google translate were 100 PERFECT as a translator(and it is NOT), that it would STILL be next to worthless.

    Steve
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