Translation or localization.
Translation carries text from one language to another; localization adapts the content to the target market’s culture, habits and search language.
The two terms are often used interchangeably, but their difference is decisive in cost and outcome. A translated site is understood; a localized site feels like it belongs to that market — and appears in its search results.
The difference shows most clearly in keywords. When a service’s Turkish name is translated directly, it can produce a term nobody in the target market searches for. The translation is correct, the result invisible.
What gets localized
- Search terms — the word actually searched in that market, not a word-for-word translation.
- The form of address — formal or familiar? In German this is an obligation; no sentence can be built before the choice.
- Examples and references — names and situations the local audience knows.
- Units and formats — date, time, number separators, currency.
- Legal texts — every market has its own legislation; translation is not enough.
- Images — images containing text must be produced separately per language.
- Contact expectations — some markets expect a phone call, others a form.
The second item is especially critical for German and demands a technical decision: formal address or familiar? The decision is made once and spreads through the whole text; it cannot be left in the middle.
On this site the German texts were written in the formal address, and that is recorded as a note in the files. In a B2B context this is the expected form — and consistency makes more difference than individual sentences.
Where machine translation stands
Machine translation has improved markedly in recent years and is now a reasonable starting point for some content types. But publishing it unreviewed carries two risks.
The first is a quality risk: the machine does not know the field’s terminology or the brand’s language. In a technical text it can produce a term that looks right but is unused in the industry — and that term sends the wrong signal to reader and search engine alike.
The second is a trust risk, and more serious: a faulty German page tells a customer in that market about carelessness. Before it is a technical SEO problem, it is a reputation problem.
The reasonable approach is hybrid: the machine produces the translation as a draft, a human reviews it and corrects the terminology. The cost is lower than translating from zero, the quality higher than the unreviewed machine.
On this site the same principle is applied and put on record: the translated strings are marked in the file with a translation note and await the owner’s approval. Which text has been verified by a human can always be known.
A faulty German page is a reputation problem before it is an SEO problem.
Cost and priority
Localization is more expensive than translation and not necessary for every page. The practical approach is to sort the pages by their impact and concentrate the investment there.
- Conversion pages — services, contact, quote. FULL localization, search terms included.
- The home page — full localization; the first impression forms here.
- Informational content — careful translation can suffice; the terminology must be verified.
- Legal texts — translation is NOT ENOUGH; every market has its own legislation.
- Archive content — may go untranslated; the set simply never declares the missing languages.
- Automatically generated strings — localized once, used everywhere.
The fourth item carries a warning: the privacy text and the terms of use are legal work, not translation work. Translating one market’s legal text from another’s may not meet that market’s requirements.
On this site the legal texts exist in three languages but carry an explicit warning in the file: the texts were not written by a lawyer and await the owner’s approval. Every technical fact they contain has been measured — no cookies, local storage empty — but legal sufficiency is a separate question, and it is on record.
A legal text is legal work, not translation work; translating one market’s into another’s does not achieve compliance.
What happens to brand language in translation
A brand’s tone — formal or familiar, technical or narrative — is the thing lost most easily in translation. The translator carries the sentences over correctly but not the tone, and the text in the target language reads like another brand’s text.
The way to prevent it is giving the translator a tone guide: which form of address, which sentence length, which terms to use and which not to. The guide is written once and used in every translation.
A term glossary serves the same function: the target-language counterparts of the brand’s technical terms are decided once and listed. Otherwise the same concept is described with three different words on three pages.
- The form of address — formal or familiar? In German this is an obligation.
- Sentence length — the brand’s rhythm should be preserved.
- A term glossary — the counterparts of technical concepts are decided once.
- The banned list — which clichés and which marketing language are off limits?
- Sample texts — a few pages showing what a good translation looks like.
On this site the German texts were written in the formal address and the decision is recorded as a note in the files. Consistency makes more difference than the quality of individual sentences — because a tone shift is the first thing a reader notices.
A measure to close: localization is a work that can be deepened without end, and at some point one must stop. The stopping point is found with this question — would this differentiation change a customer’s decision in that market? If not, the investment should not go there. Currency formatting changes the decision; an image’s colour tone usually does not.
And let us look from the other side: there are also cases of over-localization. Building a separate brand narrative, separate visual language and separate tone for every market scatters the brand’s recognizability — the user sees two different companies in two markets.
The right balance is holding the core fixed and adapting the shell: brand identity, tone and visual language shared; terms, examples and formats local. When that distinction is kept clear, both recognizability and localness survive.
A final cost note: localization is not a one-time investment but a continuous load. When the source content is updated, the localized versions must be updated too — and that load surpasses the first translation’s cost within a few years. That is the real number to include when deciding.