Creating and Maintaining An Internationalized Website

Creating and Maintaining an Internationalized Web Site
Brian “Bex” Huff
Chief Software Architect

Agenda
Intro to multi-site management
Translation vs. Localization
Localization tools and process
Common issues with translation management
Localization steps
Case study
Cutting costs
International Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Global Software is Different...
No longer "software", its "gigaware"
Applications meant to (potentially) support a billion of something
New problems always crop up with a billion of something
Every order of magnitude changes the landscape
In our case, we need to think of a billion people...
What percentage use right-to-left languages?
What laws, regulations, and cultural taboos do you need to keep in mind?
When is it a good time to do scheduled maintenance on a global website?
What's the best way to do global search engine optimization?

Beyond Single-Site Management
Initial state: a large number of internal and external Web sites
Intranet, records management, document management
Customers, partners, and supplier extranets
Content delivery to multiple portals and applications
How did we get here?
The web is the standard for high speed communication and interaction
Business need for targeted communication in multiple regions
Audience expectations for topic-specific or “micro-sites”
Some or all of which need to be localized and/or translated
Creation and maintenance can be difficult
The alternative is inconsistent branding, lost customers

How Multi-Site Management Helps
Lower site management costs, and more accurate content
Content and sites managed by business, not IT
Content can be reused, converted, translated, and re-purposed
Faster implementation time for new sites
Single infrastructure / architecture cheaper to maintain
Enforce brand guidelines
Common centralized templates, style guide, and digital assets
Centrally managed Web content
Records and retention management for discovery, litigation and risk management
Content usage analytics (contribution and consumption)
Workflow approvals

Translation is not Localization!
Translation:
Taking content relevant for one region or audience, and translating it word-for-word into another language used by that audience.
Example: government web site translated into all official languages
Localization:
Taking content relevant for a general audience, and changing the syntax of the content to appeal to a sub-group
Localization usually includes translation, but not always
Example: some product statements cannot be made in certain countries
Which do you need?
How many languages do you support?
Should different audiences see different content or navigation?

Is it a Localized Site, or a Microsite?
Some locales may be very active
Their site looks almost nothing like the global site
Do you want to manage this process?
Requires everybody to use the exact same process
Or, do you want "active locales" to have total control?
Completely different content
Completely different navigation structure
Completely different web applications
At this point, it’s no longer a localized site, but still can re-use content

Benefits of Localization Management
Cost savings
Content translated once instead of multiple times
Go-to-market time savings
Sites launched quicker by re-using exiting translated content
Brand management
Central repository for localized images, and positioning content
Frees up resources to improve the site
Focus on new features that enhance revenue
Web campaigns, interactive targeted Web marketing, etc.

What Tools Do We Need?
Oracle Universal Content Management
Document management
Metadata tagging for country, language, audience, translation state
Flexible security model
Oracle Site Studio
User-friendly contribution for knowledge workers
Business users have one place to go to manage localized data
Translation Workflows
Route content to business owners to localize for a specific audience
Route content to external partners for translation
Route to reviewers for final approvals
Custom Components
Localization process varies wildly...

Translation Process
Internal translation resources vs. translation service?
Use 3rd party translator for all changes, or just big projects?
How will you handle file management between you and the translator?
Do they need Site Studio access, or source files?
Does the translator offer an API to manage translation?
What types of source content need to be translated?
Word docs, XML, PDF, images, flash, video, resource bundles, etc.
Can the company handle everything you need?

Internal Workflow
Initial questions
Does your organization have an official language?
How many locales will create their own content?
Will some locales be more "active" than others?
What content needs to be translated, versus localized?
Workflow and routing
How will new content be routed for translation / approval?
How will small changes be routed?
Which people and which tools will need notifications?
Will there be internal approval of translated content?
When will non-translated or partly-translated content go live? Never?
When will content be considered “stale”?
How long will you tolerate “stale” content”

Internal Workflow, cont.
Understanding changes
Do you plan to set up a mechanism to categorize changes?
What content is critical, and what is “nice to have”?
What languages are critical, and which are “nice to have”?
Who determines priority? The author? The locale manager?
Is all content localized? If not, who makes the decision?
Brand management
How much flexibility should/will each localized site have with branding?
When the global company re-brands, will you require re-localization?
Will the re-brand be all-at-once, or rolled out eventually?

Who “Owns” The Localized Site?
Establish Web site ownership rules
Creating guidelines for maintaining current Web site content
Who owns the budget for content translations?
Who owns/obtains ownership of the domain?
Can you obtain ownership of the domain or do you have to use an alternate URL?
Are you planning to release a localized version but do not have a local office in the country?
Who officially owns Web site branding in your organization?
Each localized site need one primary contact / owner
Without one, stale content is guaranteed
Understands the language / need for localized content
Responsible for keeping content up-to-date
Coordinates with translators

Site Maintenance
Content relationships key to long-term maintenance
Original vs. translated items - helps automate processes & workflows
Which items belong to which Web sites?
groups content for appropriate searching, replication, bulk translation, etc.
Are originals ever used on multiples sites?
Oracle UCM Implementation
Use metadata to control language, region, audience, relationships
Use accounts to control region-specific content security
Workflows can become overwhelming
Need a more report-based approach to what work needs to be done

Governance and Microsites
A "localizable" site needs a universal style guide
Governance about navigation, content, images, styles, and applications
Locales that conform are easier to translate / manage
Without one, your pages may not meet the audience’s needs
Compromise: locale-specific "microsites"
Primary localized site follows the universal style guide
If locales need a radically different look, make a microsite
Small handful of pages / apps, specific to the audience
Not re-usable by other locales
“Deep Links” to main site
Benefits
Allows for 100% control of UI, content, apps, and navigation
Majority of localized site follows style guide

Translation Challenges
Translation workflows vary wildly
Different departments have different translation needs
Time frames, monitoring, participation
Should consolidate into UCM, and have different workflows per item
Costs
There's a startup cost for any translation
Ideally, we could submit all items logically similar
Requires different departments to pay for different things
Batches should be one bill, not a dozen
Figuring out who-pays-for-what can frequently be a surprisingly hard problem
So, each department submits their sub-batch, which increases costs

Translation Challenges, cont.
File Management
Making sure the translators are working with the latest revision
Use the API supported by the specific agency
Push new content, pull translated content
Lack of transparency
Who is really doing my translation?
Agencies receive files, then outsource to freelancers
Content owners rarely get direct communication with translators
Politics! Politics! Politics!
To cut costs, organization may want to standardize on ONE tanslator
But, different regions prefer different translators, which causes issues
Who has budget? Who knows the market?
Who can determine quality? Who knows the overall strategy?

Localization Steps
Localize applications
Relatively simple
Localize navigation
Trickier, but needs infrequent updates
Localize content
Requires constant updates

Application Localization
Labels, buttons, error messages need to be stored as translatable strings
Different locales have different formatting rules
Date strings
Phone numbers
Numerical / monetary
Different locales have different laws
Regulations about what can be bought / sold
Regulations about storing user information

Localizing Content-Rich Applications
Separate "labels" from "content"
Labels are short one-word, or one-sentence bits of text
Used on buttons, web forms, and UI displays
Controlled entirely by development
Changes rarely after first launch
Use a language pack to manage labels
Content is multi-line displays, and sometimes images
Used as descriptive test for forms, sales, marking material
Controlled by people outside of development
Changes frequently after first launch
Use Open WCM to manage content

Navigation Localization
Section labels and URLs need to be translatable strings
Sections need to be enabled / disabled depending on locale
Some sections are "global" and should be translated
Other sections are "local" and might only exist in one local
Variations
Do you want locales to automatically get new content / sections?
Or, must they approve / enable them before going live?
Or, different rules for different locales?
Use Oracle Site Studio for navigation
Store in the project file
May need custom code for URL localization

Content Localization
If a 3rd party translator is needed, select one with an API
You’ll need to be able to automatically submit items for translation
Start with global content
With one-click, spawn an initial “localized” content
Use metadata to control language, region, translation state
Spawn a workflow for managing translated content
Internal resources verify translations
Or, may do the entire translation for some changes
Need reports on the “state” of your whole site
How many items in the queue waiting for release?
Do you have a translation or approval bottleneck?
Email notifications may need to be disabled
Most organizations have wildly different routing rules...

Oracle Translation Workflow Dashboard
Direct availability: content is released immediately once translated and approved
Or, synchronized: content is not released until all items are translated and approved

Example Implementation
New global e-commerce website
Some locales were more “active” than others
Not all products / pages available in all regions
Need to localize navigation as well as content
Highly regulated industry, with potential for long approval processes
Oracle Site Studio 10gr4 plus Weblogic Portal
Navigation managed with Site Studio project file
Content displayed with WCM_PLACEHOLDER service
Localization and Personalization in Portal
User selects region/language upon first visit
Allows for translation of application labels and error messages
Different regions have different products available
Different users have different prices, based on different contracts

Additional Tools
Navigation Dashboard
Allows quick and easy localization of navigation
Locale-aware portal controller
Each locale uses a slightly different navigation structure
Some locales are 95% similar to the "global" locale
Some locales are 95% different
Each UCM service request passes along the locale
NextBestLocale
Sends back the content item
If translated item is available, send it!
Otherwise, send the "next best locale"
Useful to help slowly build out localized pages

“Next Best Locale”

Navigation Dashboard

Localization Tips
Test multiple translation vendors
Some are better with different kinds of content
It’s common to need multiple vendors, based on departmental preferences
Enforce a style guide for consistent content
Makes translation more standardized / cheaper
Always have a single “site owner” for the localized site
Responsible for keeping content up-to-date
Coordinates with chosen translation house
If an “owner” is not assigned – the risk of stale/stagnant localized sites increases
Submit projects in large batches
Translation has overhead: large projects are more cost effective
Can be difficult if project is cross department, paid for by multiple internal departments

Reducing Costs: Translation Memory Software
Database of words and phrases you translated previously
Benefits
Ensures more consistent language on your site
Assists translators, and reduces costs
Most translation companies use it to cut costs
But... if you’re the first, you pay the full costs
Other departments, or even your competition, may benefit
Might want to use translation memory software in-house
Example: World Server
Keeps a database of what you've translated
Slims down what needs to be translated before shipping to 3rd parties

Reducing Costs: Crowdsourcing
Allow your community to translate your site for you
Benefits
Less strategic content can still be translated, at a slower rate
People have a “path” to localized content, if you don’t have the money/time
Example: Lingotek
Submit documents to translation firms, direct to freelancers, or the community
Translators earn cash or “points” after translation
Depends greatly on what motivates your community
Engage partners / resellers to do your translations
Save translation memory to private or open-source databases

International SEO Tips
Have a top-level domain in the country of interest
Global site: company.com
French site: company.fr
British site: company.co.uk
Make sure content follows W3C accessibility standards
"alt" tags for images, no JavaScript navigation
This is gigaware , after all!
Make sure content contains valid markup
Clean and lean HTML is easier for web spiders to parse
Put important content at the top of the HTML
Ensures search engines "understand" what your site is "about"
Don't embed content or navigation in IFRAMEs or Flash

International SEO, part 2
Avoid the META KEYWORDS tag: it's ignored by search engines
<title>, <h1>, and <h2> tags are much more important
Put localized keywords there, but keep it to 5-10 words
Localize your META DESCRIPTION tags
Sometimes appears as a snippet of text in search engine result pages
Make each page's description unique, if possible
Use user-friendly, localized URLs
If a keyword is in your URL and <h1>/<h2> tags, it will be highly ranked
Be sure the URL contains words, not numbers/code
Avoid links that say "click here!"

International SEO, part 3
Create a sitemap.xml file for each locale
http://www.sitemaps.org /
In general, ensure web spiders can see locale-specific navigation
Advanced: use metadata to create Microformats on your page
Enhances search results pages with "Rich Snippets"
hProduct: a product your company sells
hReview / hReview-aggregate: reviews on those products
hCalendar: event
hCard: contact information for people

Join us at IOUG Collaborate, 2011
April 10-14, 2011
Orlando, Florida
http://collaborate11.ioug.org /
Call for papers now open:
Deadline: Friday, October 1st
Special Thanks to IOUG!

My Company: http://bezzotech.com
My Blog: http://bexhuff.com
My Self: [email_address]
Questions?

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Creating and Maintaining An Internationalized Website

by Brian Huff on Sep 22, 2010

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