Support for multiple languages

I've been looking for a way to translate my forum into a couple different languages in a clean way. I'm wondering if something like this will have a negative effect on SEO: vB Global Translator - Multiply your indexed pages & put search traffic on autopilot - vBulletin.org Forum

Of course then you run into the problem of people posting in different languages and having to handle that some way.

What do you think?

Please check this Adding some additional urls to my sitemap.

However i don't suggest to use that modification as it will break the purpose for vBSEO's link consensus

Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam

However i don't suggest to use that modification as it will break the purpose for vBSEO's link consensus

Really ? I've read elsewhere that adding additional languages wouldn't create dupe content.

Google suggest to create the following setup for different languages

domain.com/en/thread-1
domain.com/de/thread-2

As you can see all id's are different and the languages are clearly defined as seperate. You can also use it as subdomains. However the supplied mod you give will not have this structure.

Sounds like that can be accomplished using some rewrite rules - of course the thread id and name will still remain the same though.

Wow, some real bad advice here.

This MOD breaks link consensus and creates duplicate content because it doesn't use rewrite on the URLs?

Hmmmmm, really....

Duplicate content has nothing to do with URLs per-say, it is to do with content, if the content on a different page is different, it's not duplicate is it, in order for it to be on a new page, it must have a new URL, so what is your point?

The URLs are rewritten, just with ?hl=(language) for each different page.

Further, how can translated pages be duplicate? They are original content, translated, so are still original and no different to your current content, except in various other languages, it's not rocket science.

Link consensus is the theory that by linking to junk pages you are wasting link juice, junk pages are things like tag pages, contact pages etc. Not thread pages, these are content rich and should be included in you site above anything else.

If you think Google is going to love you more because you use mod-rewrite you are living in a dream world, but I guess it helps VBSEO make sales so that's why they love it so much.

Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam

Google suggest to create the following setup for different languages

domain.com/en/thread-1
domain.com/de/thread-2

Hi,
Do you have an Idea how to set up some rewrite rules to change:
“link.html?hl=en” to “/en/link.html”

Regards
Christian

i believe rewrite rule for this would be awesome... vbseo.com team has not replied to Hybrid's post suggests, he may have valid points...

Has anybody successfully created the CRR for this amazing plugin...? Please do share.

Regards

Originally Posted by Dave Hybrid

Wow, some real bad advice here.
Hmmmmm, really....

Duplicate content has nothing to do with URLs per-say, it is to do with content, if the content on a different page is different, it's not duplicate is it, in order for it to be on a new page, it must have a new URL, so what is your point?

The URLs are rewritten, just with ?hl=(language) for each different page.

Further, how can translated pages be duplicate? They are original content, translated, so are still original and no different to your current content, except in various other languages, it's not rocket science.

Link consensus is the theory that by linking to junk pages you are wasting link juice, junk pages are things like tag pages, contact pages etc. Not thread pages, these are content rich and should be included in you site above anything else.

If you think Google is going to love you more because you use mod-rewrite you are living in a dream world, but I guess it helps VBSEO make sales so that's why they love it so much.

Google doesn't like when you serve same page with different urls. With the mod you are sing you are actually serving the same page but with an additional parameter which uses Google translate API .

This is totally the opposite of what Google suggests. Google suggests you to clearly define the languages you use with either subdomain or a main folder. Each subdomain or folder you define should serve unique content , not the content you already have on your forum in another language.

When Google visits your site he will find the following urls

domain.com/forumname/threadname-1.html
domain.com/forumname/threadname-1.html?lg=de
domain.com/forumname/threadname-1.html?lg=ch
domain.com/forumname/threadname-1.html?lg=tr
domain.com/forumname/threadname-1.html?lg=fr

All these links are pointing to same page in Google's eyes and when Google Bot checks these pages they can easily penatilize you. It is very hard to establish a correct link consensus.
You also devaluate your thread rankings because Google not know which of the following links will have to rank higher which will eventually cause you loosing all your rankings.

Your mod may serve a good purposes but it is not good in SEO.

You can't add a CRR or .htaccess rule for vBulletin showthread pages.

Mert - I see what you're saying, but I don't see how google would treat
domain.com/forumname/threadname-1.html
domain.com/forumname/threadname-1.html?lg=de
domain.com/forumname/threadname-1.html?lg=ch
...
as the same page? Even though the base url is the same, it seems from what I've seen so far that google is treating the translated pages as separate pages, and indexing accordingly. I've even started to see some international hits flow in.

We have discussed this mod internally. At this point in time, we do not plan to support this mod. Further, we suggest not using this mod at all. We applaud the efforts and goal of the product, however, there are too many limitations and SEO consequences that led us to this position.

• The mod uses the parameter hl. hl is also used in search strings as "highlight". As you know, vbseo cookies this data parameter to achieve the highlight effect without keeping the parameter in the url. While it is highly unlikely for someone to search for 'en' or 'de' (if any results even come through being 2-chars), it will require some internal modifications to our base code.
• The value of the translation is minimal at best. The AI translations simply aren't 'there' yet. If you've ever translated a page manually, you will know that it is hard to understand-- if it makes sense at all. Further, should a foreign language member signup and post in his native tongue, you then are faced with your root language being translated as well on those posts.
• There are also charset issues to address with different languages. vb does not ship in utf-8 form, and neither is mysql set up for it out of the box (on most English systems). This may cause database errors.
• If you move to /xx/thread/ where xx is the lang code, you should also do the same for your base language (say, en). Thus, every link you currently have (assuming an English forum) without the language code should be moved to the lang directory as well, and thus, every page on your site will need to be re-indexed. We do not recommend changing url structure once you are indexed, and likewise, we do not recommend you add a lang code to your root language.
• Finally, as Mert points out above, there is the non-link consensus urls as a byproduct. This is one of the main goals that vbseo achieves and within lies one of its biggest values.

Valid points Brian. As a rule of thumb, any "auto-generated" content is never a %100 safe (white hat) move.

Also, keep in mind it's Google's own algos that are used to generate these translated pages. So it's a trivial thing (for Google) identifying content generated via the translation services. I wouldn't be surprised if they *already* have such checks in place.

I posted in this in the thread - shortly after I disabled the mod...

something I found in the google language api (Google AJAX API Terms of Use - Google AJAX Language API - Google Code) is somewhat alarming:

You may...

copy, store, archive, republish or create a database of Google Results, in whole or in part, directly or indirectly, except that you may: (1) store Google Results in a temporary cache for a period not to exceed fifteen (15) days solely for the purpose of using Google Results to carry out a specific user-requested action; and/or (2) display Google Results that have been "clipped" through a user-requested action, provided that you comply with the attribution requirements described in Section 2.3 below;

also, from a google employee: Translation API - Store translations in a database? - Google AJAX APIs | Google Groups

Originally Posted by Brian Cummiskey

We have discussed this mod internally. At this point in time, we do not plan to support this mod. Further, we suggest not using this mod at all. We applaud the efforts and goal of the product, however, there are too many limitations and SEO consequences that led us to this position.

• The mod uses the parameter hl. hl is also used in search strings as "highlight". As you know, vbseo cookies this data parameter to achieve the highlight effect without keeping the parameter in the url. While it is highly unlikely for someone to search for 'en' or 'de' (if any results even come through being 2-chars), it will require some internal modifications to our base code.
• The value of the translation is minimal at best. The AI translations simply aren't 'there' yet. If you've ever translated a page manually, you will know that it is hard to understand-- if it makes sense at all. Further, should a foreign language member signup and post in his native tongue, you then are faced with your root language being translated as well on those posts.
• There are also charset issues to address with different languages. vb does not ship in utf-8 form, and neither is mysql set up for it out of the box (on most English systems). This may cause database errors.
• If you move to /xx/thread/ where xx is the lang code, you should also do the same for your base language (say, en). Thus, every link you currently have (assuming an English forum) without the language code should be moved to the lang directory as well, and thus, every page on your site will need to be re-indexed. We do not recommend changing url structure once you are indexed, and likewise, we do not recommend you add a lang code to your root language.
• Finally, as Mert points out above, there is the non-link consensus urls as a byproduct. This is one of the main goals that vbseo achieves and within lies one of its biggest values.

Oh, shit. My English is worse than that of the translator. Google! Please do not index my posts on vbseo.