How to Improve Your Automated Translation Quality

Introduction

When you hear the term “automated translation,” what comes to mind? If your first thought is Google Translate and its integration with browsers like Chrome, you are only scratching the surface. Automated translation actually predates Google by decades. According to Wikipedia, the Georgetown experiment, which involved the fully automatic translation of more than sixty Russian sentences into English in 1954, was one of the earliest recorded machine translation projects.

Today, automated translation is everywhere. Popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter), along with a growing number of web browsers, now allow users to explore content in multiple languages with a single click.

The applications are practical and wide-ranging. Traveling abroad and need directions in an unfamiliar area? A translation app can help immediately. Planning to study in a country where you do not speak the language? Automated translation can bridge that gap while you find your footing. The technology has become a fundamental part of how people navigate an increasingly multilingual world.

Automated translation is also seeing significant growth in its use for website translation, and for good reason. Handling large-scale translation projects manually is time-consuming and expensive. Automated tools make it far more manageable.

At ConveyThis, we use machine translation, also known as automated translation, to give users a powerful edge when it comes to translating their websites. However, our approach goes beyond a simple automated output. In this article, we will address some of the most common myths surrounding automated translation and explain how it can play a vital role in the localization of your website.

What Automatic Translation Actually Means for Your Website

There is a common misconception that automatic website translation simply means copying your content, pasting it into a translation tool, and then pasting the results back onto your site. That is not how effective automated translation works.

Another approach some store owners take is using the free Google Translate widget, which gives a website the appearance of being available in multiple languages by adding a language switcher to the front end. While visitors can technically view a translated version of the page, this method comes with significant limitations. Output quality varies considerably across language pairs, and because the translation is handled entirely by Google, the results are not editable. You have no ability to review, refine, or adapt the content to better suit your brand or audience.

When Automated Translation Is the Right Choice

Translating a website into multiple languages manually is an enormous undertaking. Consider the sheer volume of words across your pages, the coordination required between translators and internal team members, and the back-and-forth involved in managing files and approvals. It is a time-intensive and costly process, which is exactly why automated translation is such a valuable option.

When we refer to an automated translation solution here, we are specifically talking about ConveyThis. ConveyThis does not just detect and translate your website content automatically. It also gives you the option to review and edit what has been translated, giving you control over the final output.

In practice, there are many cases where automated translation output requires little to no editing. If you run an e-commerce store with hundreds of product pages, for example, the translated descriptions, titles, and navigation elements will often be accurate enough to publish without review. Where you are more likely to want human input is in content that needs to capture your brand voice precisely, such as your homepage copy, marketing messaging, or product storytelling. In those cases, you can layer human review on top of the automated translation to get the best of both worlds.

What Makes ConveyThis Different

ConveyThis provides automated translation that works directly on a single page without duplicating it, which protects your SEO by avoiding duplicate content issues. What truly sets ConveyThis apart from other machine translation platforms, however, is the ability to modify and refine translated content after the initial automated pass.

Once ConveyThis is integrated with your website, every element is automatically translated in the first pass: text, images, site metadata, dynamic content, and more. This is done using trusted and accurate automated translation providers. From there, you have full visibility into the quality of your translations and can choose how to proceed.

ConveyThis offers three translation workflow options: automatic, manual, and professional translation. You do not need to export or supply your content in any particular format. Simply install ConveyThis on your website, and the platform handles detection and translation automatically. The initial automated layer not only delivers a strong first draft but also saves significant time compared to starting from scratch manually, while eliminating the risk of human error in the initial translation pass.

How Automatic Translation Works in ConveyThis

By default, ConveyThis applies automatic translation to your website content. However, you have full control over this setting and can disable it at any time. To turn off automatic translation:

• Go to your ConveyThis dashboard
• Click the Translation tab
• Under the Options tab, select the language pair for which you want to disable automatic translation
• Toggle off the Display Automatic Translation button
• You can also toggle off the Make Public option to keep translations hidden until you are fully ready to launch them

When automatic translation is turned off, no translated content will be displayed on your website. Any content you edit manually will still appear in your translation list and will be shown to visitors once published.

Using Human Translators to Refine Your Translations

For content that requires a more polished result, you can bring in human translators to review and edit the automated output. You can handle this editing yourself directly within the ConveyThis dashboard, or you can add a team member to assist. To add a translator to your project:

• Go to the Settings tab in your dashboard
• Click on the Team tab
• Select Add Member

When adding a team member, you can assign them one of two roles. A Translator will have access to the translation list and can make edits using the visual editor. A Manager will have broader access and can adjust all aspects of your translation project.

Using Professional Translators

If your team does not include a native speaker of your target language and you need a higher level of accuracy or cultural nuance, ConveyThis gives you the option to order a professional translation directly from your dashboard. Within approximately two business days, a verified professional translator will be assigned to your project to review and refine your content to a high standard.

Building Your Translation Workflow with ConveyThis

With ConveyThis, you are in full control of how your translation workflow is structured. The automated first layer provides an immediate, high-quality starting point. From there, you can decide how much additional refinement your content requires. You might choose to leave certain sections at the automated output, have team members edit others manually, or bring in a professional translator for your most important pages. All of this is managed from a single ConveyThis dashboard.

This flexibility makes ConveyThis an ideal solution for businesses at any stage of their localization journey, whether you are translating your first language or scaling up to support a dozen. If you are ready to take your website global, now is the time to get started.

Related: Impossible to Translate this Page – Google Translate