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The Importance of Website Translation Quality Assurance Reviews

Multinational companies make significant investments to develop and update their websites in order to attract customers. In our global world of business, websites are one of the most important mediums used to sell, advertise and market products as well as establish credibility as an industry expert.

For these websites to reach global audiences, they must be translated and localized into the targeted audiences’ languages. However, localization that isn’t conducted through an ISO certified process can result in inaccuracies like spelling mistakes, incorrect translations, broken lines, cultural blunders, etc.  In this blog, I will focus on one of the most important steps in the translation process that helps to avoid these issues: online quality assurance (QA).

Content Importing Methods

After translations are completed, we use multiple methods to import the localized content back into the website. This can be either done using connectors for different content management systems (CMS), which help to export and import the content or by manually copying and pasting the translations directly into a CMS. Once the translations are imported into the CMS, the online QA process begins.

Whichever method you use for importing the translated content, the localized content has not yet been thoroughly reviewed to ensure the content is appearing correctly and for any issues like linguistic errors, broken lines or corrupted characters that may result from the importation. It is vital that after the translations are imported back into the CMS, your translation team should be given an opportunity to review the website. This can be done in a draft mode through the connector or by screenshots to ensure everything is accurate before going live to audiences.

What Issues Translation Quality Assurance Prevents

Some possible errors that can be caused due to negligence of online QA, include:

  1. Company names or branded terms could appear incorrectly. For example, Globalization Partners International FZ-LLC is a name that requires more space than many other company names due to its length. When translations are imported for company names or branded terms that are longer in length, errors like cutting or cropping of the term to a new image or segment could occur.
  2. Text formatting and layout issues. This can be especially true if you are translating from a left-to-right language to a right-to-left language, QA teams will check that the text is flowing in the correct direction.
  3. Cultural blunders. If your content has images and/or colors, your translation teams will be able to check that those pieces are localized for the local audiences and won’t be offensive or confusing.
  4. Currency issues. If you have prices listed on your website, part of the QA will be to make sure the prices are converted correctly. Other numerical items like dates, time, etc. will also be checked if applicable.
  5. QA teams will test any forms, CTAs, navigation, etc. to ensure all elements of your website are performing correctly.

These are basic examples that the online translation quality assurance process can catch and address before publishing your website live. This process does add cost and time to the project, however, the last thing you want to do is jeopardize the reliability, trust and confidence of your company’s reputation.