Intelligent translation

Feature overview

Intelligent translation supports 21 target languages. For content that machine translation does not render accurately, proofread it manually in Translation review.

The overall workflow of intelligent translation is as follows:

• On the intelligent translation configuration page, turn on the Enable intelligent translation switch, and select the source language and target languages.

• Translations are generated in real time when visitors browse the website.

• Visitors switch languages on the website frontend by using the language switcher.

• To improve translation quality, proofread the translations manually in Translation review.

Access intelligent translation

Intelligent translation is located in the Website assistant module of the website console.

Enable intelligent translation

Intelligent translation is disabled by default. Turn it on manually before it takes effect. After you turn on the switch, pages are translated on demand as visitors access them. For details, see How translation takes effect.

1. On the intelligent translation configuration page, turn on the Enable intelligent translation switch.

2. Confirm that the Source language matches the language that your website currently uses.

   You cannot select the source language itself as a target language.

3. In Target languages, select the languages that you want to enable.

   The target language is English by default. The page shows the number of selected target languages. 21 languages are available, including English, Japanese, Korean, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Italian, Thai, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Malay, Arabic, Turkish, Dutch, Polish, Hindi, and Traditional Chinese. For the complete list, refer to the Target languages drop-down list in the console.

4. Confirm the status of the Skip translation for crawler access switch.

   (Recommended) Keep this switch on to reserve the translation quota for real visitors. If you want search engine crawlers to access the translated versions of your pages, turn off this switch. For more information, see . For details about how this switch works, see Skip translation for crawler access.

5. After you enable intelligent translation, visit the website frontend. The language switcher appears in the page header.

   The intelligent translation configuration page contains the following configuration items:

How translation takes effect

Enabling intelligent translation does not mean the whole website is translated immediately. Turning on the switch only enables the translation capability: pages are translated on demand as visitors access them.

When a visitor browses your website, the system translates page content in real time based on the visitor's browser language and caches the result automatically. Subsequent visitors who access the same language version are served the cached translation, so the content is not translated again. Visitors do not need to do anything to see the page content in their own language.

Translation review

Translation review lets you view and modify translated content.

Procedure:

1. Select the target language that you want to edit.

2. Open Translation review. The source column is read-only, and only the translation column is editable.

   If the website has not generated any translations yet, Translation review contains no records. After visitors access the website and generate translations, you can view and refine them here.

3. Click Edit to modify a translation, and then save it. After you save, the status of the entry changes from "Machine translation" to "Reviewed". The source text is not affected.

   Take note of the following items:

• After you switch the source language, that language becomes the source column (read-only) in Translation review and cannot be edited.

• Modified content affects only the current language and does not change the source language content.

Frontend language switching

After you enable intelligent translation, a language switcher appears in the header of the website frontend. The switcher shows the current language by default, such as Chinese (Simplified). The language switcher lists the website's source language and the enabled target languages. Visitors can click the switcher and select a language to browse the website in their preferred language.

When intelligent translation is not enabled, or after you turn off the Enable intelligent translation switch, the language switcher is hidden automatically and does not appear on the frontend pages. After you adjust the target language configuration, the languages listed in the language switcher are updated accordingly.

Skip translation for crawler access

The translation quota is a finite resource. Search engine crawlers such as Googlebot and Baiduspider crawl pages in bulk when they index a website. If these requests also trigger real-time translation, they consume a large amount of the translation quota.

When the Skip translation for crawler access switch is turned on, the system identifies crawler requests and skips real-time translation for those requests, so that the translation quota is reserved for real visitors.

To confirm the status of the Skip translation for crawler access switch, see Enable intelligent translation.

Usage notes

• The source language is the base language for translation. If the source language does not match the language that your website currently uses, the translation result may not be as expected.

• The visual editing feature in the preview area is available only in the source language.

• Intelligent translation translates only the text content of pages and does not affect image resources. All language versions share the same set of image resources. If images change after you switch languages, check the page layout configuration of the target language version.

• The translation behavior in the development preview environment may differ from that in the production environment. After the website is published, the actual translation effect on the production website prevails.

FAQ

• After I enable intelligent translation, why can't I see the language switcher on the frontend?

  The language switcher appears only after intelligent translation is enabled. Return to the intelligent translation configuration page and confirm that the Enable intelligent translation switch is on. In addition, the development preview environment may behave differently from the production environment. The actual result on the published website prevails.

• Why are there no translation records in Translation review?

  Translations are generated in real time when visitors access the website. If the website has not had any visitors yet, Translation review shows "No translation records". This is normal.

• When I select target languages, why can't I find the same language as the source language?

  The source language is the base language for translation, so it cannot be selected as a target language. For example, when the source language is Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Simplified) does not appear in the target language list.

• What happens to my website after I turn off the intelligent translation switch?

  After you turn off the Enable intelligent translation switch, the language switcher on the frontend is hidden automatically, and visitors can no longer switch languages. To provide multilingual versions again, turn the switch back on.