Should you use Google’s new translation tool for AdWords?

Posted by AdWords on Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Google announced that your can use their translator service to automatically translate an .aes (AdWords Editor File) into various languages.

Sounds nice?

I’m not so sure. The same words have different meanings in different languages and this scares me a little bit.

Andy Atkins-Krüger wrote a good piece at Search Engine Watch about translation a while ago that is worth reading again before you use the tool without a language specialist to edit the file before your keywords and ads go live.

I spoke on the same panel as Andy at SES San Jose and he definitely knows his linguists. Here’s a good comment from the piece for just English (and it gets crazier past English):

Why doesn’t translating keywords work? Because keywords are the fruit of a language, hanging on the branches of trees that grew and were nurtured in the local climate and are rooted in the local culture. As markers of someone’s intent when they search — they spring from local habits and behaviors that will vary from country to country — or even region to region.

Compare the U.S. and U.K. use of English — the same language. In the U.K., we’re in the habit of saying "holiday" when folks in the U.S. would say "vacation." For "football boots" Americans would say "soccer cleats" (Can someone please tell me what a "cleat" is? Because, as a sailor, I think that’s somewhere you fix a rope to stop it slipping). And as for baseball, well that’s just not cricket.

Here’s the full article on translation.

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