Introduction
To cheer people up in this challenging time, my team launched a project to build a website on WordPress called Love in the Time of COVID-19 to share good news happening around the world during COVID-19. We localized the website into Hindi, simplified Chinese, Azerbaijani and Russian by Weglot.
Weglot provides proxy-based translation. It can automatically translate an entire website into over 100 languages within 5 minutes by machine translation — a combination of Microsoft, DeepL, and Yandex translation services depending on the language pair. Our overall experience with Weglot localization is good, and the customer service is satisfying. We’ve been receiving emails from the marketing team to provide support several times after we purchased a Pro plan. The plugin is easy to install and integrates with many CMSs.
Install Weglot on WordPress
- Search for the Weglot Translate plugin. Install and activate it to your WordPress website.
- Register on Weglot website for a free trail or a paid plan. Enter the API key and language combinations.
- Wait for a few seconds and then you can access your translation by the language switcher at the right bottom. To edit translation or configure settings, press the Weglot button at the top bar.
Choosing the plan: Weglot provides service with limited word counts, languages, and team members, clients should choose their the plan that fit their needs.
Pros
- Allow users to test the tool before buying it; monthly plan is provided
(e.g. footer in the simplified Chinese website is actually traditional Chinese) - Visual editor that provides in-context translation; easy to edit
- Translation rules: you can add your own glossary that will automatically be applied to your translations
- Can invite collaborators as project managers or translators (Pro, Advanced & Enterprise plans)
(Only the Project Manager can overview all projects, translators can only edit translations in their language pairs.) - A cloud-based platform that users can access to from anywhere in the world as long as there is Internet connection
- Access to professional translators (has to be a premium plan)
- Statistics to show conversion rate and data of the translated websites so client can evaluate their translation and understand the market (Pro, Advanced & Enterprise plans)
Cons
- Automatic translations often require human editing
- The href tags and permalinks can be messed up sometimes
- HTML view feature does not work sometimes
- Cannot upload TM, TB and reference files
- If Weglot fails to detect certain contents to translate, then probably there is no way to extract and translate these parts
- Lose access to your proxy-based contents if subscription ends
Conclusion
It might be a good option for small companies that do not need to update their websites very often and what their websites translated in a timely manner. But if the company’s goal is to expand their businesses to international markets or have some original contents in certain languages, then it may not be the best choice since proxy-based translation mirrors the original website. That is to say, it can only detect and translate contents in the original website, so there is less flexibility in content-creation. Companies have to pay for the service fee every month to keep their translated contents, unless they pay for an Advanced or an Enterprise plan to export translations. But again, they’ll still have to find a way to import that translation to their WordPress websites if they end subscription with Weglot.
Please watch this video to learn more about this project and Weglot localization experience.