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Poll: Do you think SEO translations are a legitimate job?
Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
ProZ.com Staff
SITE STAFF
Apr 14, 2017

This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "Do you think SEO translations are a legitimate job?".

This poll was originally submitted by Murillo Mathias. View the poll results »



 
neilmac
neilmac
Spain
Local time: 13:55
Spanish to English
+ ...
A what now? Apr 14, 2017

Google says "Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website " ... yadda yadda BS etc. I still have no idea what SEO translation might be, but it immediately sounds iffy to me, most likely yet another ploy for some to get rich off the backs and sweat of exploited others.

Not interested.


 
Jack Doughty
Jack Doughty  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 12:55
Russian to English
+ ...
In memoriam
SEO meaning Apr 14, 2017

I voted for not knowing what SEO translations are, but then I tried to find out. After finding some explanation of this, I still didn't know what SEO stood for. But then I found it means SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION. So you have to translate in a way that gets the information well up in its placing on search engines.

 
Muriel Vasconcellos
Muriel Vasconcellos  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 05:55
Member (2003)
Spanish to English
+ ...
I'm very familiar with SEO, but ... Apr 14, 2017

... I have no idea how translation would be involved. Translating keywords?

 
Michael Harris
Michael Harris  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 13:55
Member (2006)
German to English
No idea, Apr 14, 2017

good to know I am not alone.

 
Wolfgang Jörissen
Wolfgang Jörissen  Identity Verified
Belize
Dutch to German
+ ...
Is prostitution a legitimate job? Apr 14, 2017

It probably is. Whether I want to do it, is the second question.

 
Christopher Schröder
Christopher Schröder
United Kingdom
Member (2011)
Swedish to English
+ ...
It's pretty self-evident, no? Apr 14, 2017

SEO is writing in a way that gets more Google hits, so logically SEO translation would be writing your translation in that same way.

Sounds like a perfectly legitimate exercise to me, and quite possibly an interesting linguistic and creative challenge. But I've never been asked.

And tbh I'd rather continue to translate in the style of Mr Shakspear. Dem foreign clients doth loves it.


 
Susana E. Cano Méndez
Susana E. Cano Méndez  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 13:55
French to Spanish
+ ...
I don't know... Apr 14, 2017

How translating for SEO Birdlife might be a nuisance for me or other people . Eager to read further comments on this poll, because I haven't got a clue.

 
Susana E. Cano Méndez
Susana E. Cano Méndez  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 13:55
French to Spanish
+ ...
I see now Apr 14, 2017

Chris S wrote:

SEO is writing in a way that gets more Google hits, so logically SEO translation would be writing your translation in that same way.



Thank you Chris, I see the point now.

Answer to the poll: Why not, since it would be a translation with special requirements, close to localization (key words are not always the same in different countries).

[Edited at 2017-04-14 09:31 GMT]


 
Thayenga
Thayenga  Identity Verified
Germany
Local time: 13:55
Member (2009)
English to German
+ ...
Yes Apr 14, 2017

It's like any other job, though it takes more time to creating catching keywords. I've done it once, but am not eager to do it again other than when translating a website.

Like many other jobs, translating SEO is bound to bring profit to someone in time, so it's legitimate. Whether someone wants to support Google, is another question.


 
Oriol Vives (X)
Oriol Vives (X)  Identity Verified
Spain
Local time: 13:55
English to Catalan
+ ...
No. Apr 14, 2017

So basically I would have to translate "ketchup sauce" into "ketxu", "quetchup", "ketchup", "ketsu", "quetsu", "kechup", and a long et cetera, and for one word I would be writing a thousand (and burning my brain out in the process).

Do I get paid for source words or for target words? How am I supposed to know what *most* people will write or how will they do it in a e-search? Sounds like a no.


 
Ricki Farn
Ricki Farn
Germany
Local time: 13:55
English to German
Yes Apr 14, 2017

SEO optimization can be offered in addition to translation. It's a type of keyword translation, but it's not mostly done with the translator's brain but with tools, so it is pretty boring to do, and at least part of it can be done by a less qualified person.

Assuming I want to translate a website that sells "trousers". There are tools that crawl the web and/or use existing data from search engines to see what keywords work best for other websites that sell trousers. With such a too
... See more
SEO optimization can be offered in addition to translation. It's a type of keyword translation, but it's not mostly done with the translator's brain but with tools, so it is pretty boring to do, and at least part of it can be done by a less qualified person.

Assuming I want to translate a website that sells "trousers". There are tools that crawl the web and/or use existing data from search engines to see what keywords work best for other websites that sell trousers. With such a tool, I might come up with "pants" and "jeans" in addition to "trousers", plus some mistyped variants, plus "long tail" phrases such as "blue jeans", "blue jeans used look", or "trousers for men". I would then use these keywords in the metadata, and work the best (most frequently searched) of them into the actual website text as well, and if possible even into the URL (www.example.com/trousers-pants-jeans/ladies-blue-htm). Of course, a tool could differentiate for demographics, so "trousers" might work better for websites meant for the UK, and "pants" for the US. And so on.

So it's nice for people who like doing crossword puzzles and similar, with a bit of statistics thrown in.
Collapse


 
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida
Maria Teresa Borges de Almeida  Identity Verified
Portugal
Local time: 12:55
Member (2007)
English to Portuguese
+ ...
Other Apr 14, 2017

I've never been asked and I don’t think I would be interested…

 
Christelle P
Christelle P  Identity Verified
France
English to French
+ ...
yes, it's a legitimate job but it's not translation Apr 14, 2017

Oriol Vives wrote:

So basically I would have to translate "ketchup sauce" into "ketxu", "quetchup", "ketchup", "ketsu", "quetsu", "kechup", and a long et cetera, and for one word I would be writing a thousand (and burning my brain out in the process).

Do I get paid for source words or for target words? How am I supposed to know what *most* people will write or how will they do it in a e-search? Sounds like a no.



Exactly - to me it's not a translation job, I can give the client the proper keyword and then, in my opinion, it's the job of its marketing team to search for the different variations, they are the ones who know the target and should know what words are in use in that field for this target.

I got such a request once, I've done it and it was very frustrating to propose "mistakes", it was also difficult to know what is currently used in the streets, I haven't lived in France for over 10 years and don't know how teenagers speak and search on the web.


 
DZiW (X)
DZiW (X)
Ukraine
English to Russian
+ ...
(almost) everything can be translated Apr 14, 2017

If there's a web-content, a web-style, a web-writer (aka social/bloggers), a web-audience (aka surfers), and so on, then there surely must be web-translators; where is the real problem? Even word-rankings translation counts.

 
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Poll: Do you think SEO translations are a legitimate job?






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