Does a copy of translated text = duplicate content?

Ok, stupid question I know...I'll take the beating.

I am wondering if I take a page in English, and I use Google's translator to change it to say Spanish, then upload that page to the web will Google see it as Duplicate content?

Thank you in advance for your responses.

No.

G-Man

kboxer7 said:

Ok, stupid question I know...I'll take the beating.

I am wondering if I take a page in English, and I use Google's translator to change it to say Spanish, then upload that page to the web will Google see it as Duplicate content?

Thank you in advance for your responses.

Click to expand...

G is right on, it doesn't count as duplicate content at all. However, if you aren't dealing with any country that speaks the language that you are translating to, I would suggest against it, as other markets will see and expect your services. Don't do this if you are just doing it for backlinking.

It is a bad move for local and/or domestic business practices.

Good stuff. So I could then potentially use Google's translator to translate my sites in English to Spanish, effectivly doubling the number of sites I have and also targeting a LARGE Spanish market. I'm sure I'm not the first one to think of this, but I did not want to get hit for DUP content by doing this.

Actually I wanted to do this for my adsense and affiliate sites. No real customer service needed there.

Yes it doesn't harm and you can really use it like you planning. People are doing it... Just make sure after translating it doesn't become something else. Sometimes same word means different things and i have tried this and on few instance i got lots of words which made my whole content funny...

bizroot said:

Yes it doesn't harm and you can really use it like you planning. People are doing it... Just make sure after translating it doesn't become something else. Sometimes same word means different things and i have tried this and on few instance i got lots of words which made my whole content funny...

Click to expand...

Complete agree with that.

Translation conversion can get you way more of the wrong type of attention simply due to misinterpretation of the material.

Also consider the way you phrase your content when being converted, as what may sound cool in English may reflect a completely different or disrespectful meaning in another language or culture.

Example:

Chevy came out with the Nova, which was a top seller in the American and Canadian auto markets but BOMBED in the Mexican auto trade arena.

Reason: ' Nova ' is a form of shooting star in English but, in spanish, the word means ' no go '.

Result: A lot of cars that didn't go anywhere other than back to the Chevy lots up here until an advertising specialist discovered the issue and started the ' Cheverolet Corp International Marketing Division '.

That was 30+ years ago. Issues like this happen on a minute to minute basis on the internet.

Google recommends placing translated pages into their own area. For example sp.yourdomain.com << subdomain copy of your site in Spanish, or yourdomain.com/spanish << directory copy in Spanish.

@ All: Thank you all for the support and feedback. I think I will try translating a couple of my sites written in English to Spanish as a test case (having a proofreader/friend check for and translation errors).

@ MisterGemini - Would I recieve the same benefit in terms of additional (potential) SE traffic by placing translated pages into a subdomain as I would if I uploaded a completely separate site that was translated?

kboxer7 said:

@ All: Thank you all for the support and feedback. I think I will try translating a couple of my sites written in English to Spanish as a test case (having a proofreader/friend check for and translation errors).

@ MisterGemini - Would I recieve the same benefit in terms of additional (potential) SE traffic by placing translated pages into a subdomain as I would if I uploaded a completely separate site that was translated?

Click to expand...

A subdomain is the same as a domain in google's eyes.

Thus putting it on a subdomain you'd lose the advantage of having links built to your site already.

G-Man

kboxer7 said:

@ All: Thank you all for the support and feedback. I think I will try translating a couple of my sites written in English to Spanish as a test case (having a proofreader/friend check for and translation errors).

@ MisterGemini - Would I recieve the same benefit in terms of additional (potential) SE traffic by placing translated pages into a subdomain as I would if I uploaded a completely separate site that was translated?

Click to expand...

What the above poster said is right. A subdomain would be sufficiently regarded as a separate site.

If your goal is to get SERP listing in other countries than yes it would help greatly.