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By Bert Esselink

The web has created a new localization model. Where product localization has been around for over 20 years, professional web site globalization is a relatively new phenomenon. In contrast to product localization, which is based on a project-based model, successful web globalization efforts are organized under a program-based model.

It is easy to see why: web sites are never a one-time project. Most professional web sites contain continuously updated and revised content. This streaming content is often provided in multiple languages and offers a high degree of personalization.

This article summarizes the structural differences in localization approaches when dealing with software localization projects versus dealing with web site localization programs.

1 - Update Frequency
The web has provided publishers with a vehicle to frequently update information and to publish it immediately. Traditional software release cycles would call for new versions to be published once every year, with -- in most cases -- intermediate patches every three to six months. On the web, however, product information, product support information, and even web-based software applications can be updated whenever necessary. Many of today's professional web sites are updated at least once a day.

For multilingual web sites this frequency of updates has raised the challenge of keeping language versions synchronized. Updates in the source language need to be reflected in the other languages -- preferably simultaneously. Obviously, this requires an extremely quick turn-around time for translations. The update process for desktop software applications can usually be managed manually. However, updating of multilingual web content often requires some form of automation to manage complex workflows.

Major content management systems such as Vignette and Documentum provide the means to have teams of contributors work jointly on constantly updated web content, often automating the publishing workflow and providing each team member with individual rights to author, edit, approve, and publish information. Most of these systems, however, lack specific features to deal with translated content.

2 - Translation Technology
The complexity of automatically synchronizing multilingual web content brings us to the topic of translation technology. Various tools and web content management systems have been developed to store and manage information in multiple languages on web sites. Examples of such systems include Idiom's WorldServer (http://www.idiominc.com) and Lionbridge's Globalization Platform (http://www.lionbridge.com).

The main challenge facing these translation tools is the distributed nature of the multilingual web authoring and translation process. Local-language versions of the content are provided by a combination of local offices, localization service providers, local distributors, and international marketing departments.

Setting up an organization and workflow that creates and manages content in multiple languages efficiently is a complicated task that is often underestimated. Even when the technology is in place to host and manage multilingual web sites, many other issues need to be considered, such as provision of local (not localized) content, allocation of localization budgets, validation process for content translated by a third party service provider, etc. Considering the fact that most corporate web sites publish content from all departments in the company, a central body organizing and prioritizing the multilingual content may greatly reduce any conflicts of interest.

3 - Publisher/Localization Provider Relationship
Where traditional software localization projects enabled publishers to work with various localization providers for each individual project, web localization programs require a much tighter integration between the publishers' and vendors' technology, process and workflow, resources, and service model.

Publishers maintaining multilingual web sites frequently opt for one of the following models:

• Full outsourcing -- A full outsourcing model implies that the localization vendor integrates translation technology with the technology used by the publisher. An example would be an English web site maintained by the publisher in the United States, and a separate server publishing all multilingual content -- configured, installed, and maintained by the vendor. Under this model, the design of the local(ized) content and the full translation workflow is often managed by the vendor as well.
• Translation services only -- Many publishers prefer to centrally manage and maintain all content, regardless of language. In this model, only translatable content is sent to the vendor for translation, and returned to the publisher for inclusion on the multilingual web site. This model is effective when a multilingual site architecture has been set up to separate translatable information from layout and functionality. In addition, the publisher needs to obtain all expertise and resources necessary to deal with localizations and multi-language publishing.

There is no single "right" approach: Multilingual and local language web sites are considered a key asset to international businesses, a distributed model with a separate web site for each target market can enhance a market-specific branding program. On the other hand, the costs of managing and maintaining web sites in various locations can be greatly reduced when implementing a centralized multilingual web site model.

Regardless of the approach, many online publishers have recently sought to partner with localization vendors (as opposed to outsourcing one-time jobs to them). Globalization is a high priority for most global web properties and they require partners to help them achieve their objectives now and in the future.

4 - Translation Expertise
Regardless of technology used and outsourcing model adopted, language expertise in various vertical domains remains essential, probably even more so than in the "software localization era". Where software products often only require limited amount of domain expertise (e.g., in the area of Enterprise Resource Planning or Customer Relationship Management), web localization not only requires subject-matter expertise but also demands different translation approaches for various web site components.

For example, a corporate site that contains both marketing and product information requires two different translation approaches. The marketing message may have to be adapted extensively to each target market, where most product information can be handled with a straightforward translation process.

Most professional localization service providers will work with specialized marketing translation specialists who not only translate the information, but also change the message to reflect local habits and customs. For marketing content, the traditional per-word translation budgeting approach needs to be abandoned in favor of an hourly-based linguistic and international cultural marketing consulting approach.

5 - So what has not changed with the web?
The web and the advent of multilingual web sites have shaken up localization, but not all is lost. Virtually all of the core skills, processes, and methodologies developed in localization still apply to web site localization projects. Creating a web site that needs to go live in six languages within a two day time window still requires all of the standard process steps, including project preparation, language editing, proofreading, layout check, etc.

Web-based applications are localized exactly like the "traditional" desktop applications -- the only difference being the delivery platform. Applications still have dialog boxes, menus, and messages that may need to be localized into other languages.

The main differences are in the testing of the localized applications. Where desktop applications need to be tested on a range of different (language) versions of the operating system, web applications need to be tested on a range of different browser and platform versions. In addition, web-based applications depend on the local bandwidth. An application that runs perfectly through the browser of a user in North America may be totally unusable for a user in Asia because of local bandwidth limitations.

In conclusion, for web-based applications software localization does not change much. Although the internationalization features in "new" development platforms such as Java and XML have made localization much easier, the basic steps required to localize applications remain the same.

Despite some shared fundamentals, there are important differences between the project-based model used in software localization and the program-based web globalization model. In contrast to software localization, the main challenges for maintaining multilingual web sites lie in internationalizing the site architecture, balancing global/translated versus local content, automating translation workflows, and keeping multilingual content in sync with the source language.

These tasks may be greatly simplified once web content-management systems provide functionality to deal with multilingual content and localization process workflows. Until then, however, the only way to achieve this is a tight cooperation between and process integration of publishers and localization vendors.

Bert Esselink (bert@locguide.com) has been active in software localization and multilingual web projects for over a decade. After graduating in technical translation and doing coursework in programming and computational linguistics, he worked for several years as a localization specialist for various localization firms. Since January 2000 he is employed by Lionbridge in the Netherlands, managing globalization consultancy services. John Benjamins Publishing Company published the second edition of his book, A Practical Guide to Localization, in September 2000.

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