Site based on translated content

[OnlineDopamine]

Hi folks,

wondering if anyone has ever created a site in their local language simply by translating existing content from other sites?

For example, I am German and although it's a fairly huge market, I have seen quite a few niches / SERPs that feature relatively old content. Competition isn't nearly as stiff.

The idea would to be to essentially copy existing content for that query, translate it using DeepL, and then just publish it as my own.

Apart from the obvious moral question, is there any other issues one might face down the road? Has anyone actually ever done something like this?

 

[Dani]

Does it work? Yes.
Could you face legal trouble down the road? Yes.

Anyway, there are a lot of badly translated sites out there – just Google Translate and Copy/Paste – ranking for solid keywords.

Google seems to "allow" it for now – if you're going to go for it (and actually want to have success), I'd recommend not simply translating the content but rather getting inspired by the English result(s) and crafting a better piece of German content based on the original contents.

 

[Google PE]

There are many such sites. Because the quality of their content is usually very low, they do not exist for a long.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Google has been very clear that this is against the Webmaster Guidelines.

Whether or not they're actively spending the resources to go after it (doubtful, with so many languages and sites to compare), they definitely don't want you to do it.

Whether or not you should do it would depend (not considering the morality of it, which is throws the whole thing out the window) on the quality of the translations. I'm sure it'd largely read like broken German. You're probably better off just having someone rewrite articles if you care if people actually read it. If you're just after display ad views or whatever, then I'd bot the whole process and fire away and enjoy it while it lasts.

 

[wikibum]

There is a reason professional translators exist. I speak 3 languages and its easy to spot which content is translated and which is not.

Think about it from the user perspective. Let's say I speak German and I am reading a page about "best strawberry planters" and I realize some of the words don't make sense and just low quality - I would not continue reading and I will no longer trust that site. So, essentially - you won't make money and your conversion rate would be horrible.

Not only that, but Google will notice that (from their google analytics session data) and eventually drop your rankings.

It sounds easy to just copy someone's content and translate it with tools and try to make money from it, but it's actually a waste of time, not to mention all the shitty karma you will be adding to yourself.

 

[enivid]

The idea would to be to essentially copy existing content for that query, translate it using DeepL, and then just publish it as my own.

That's your problem! If you do it the right way - with high-quality human translation, you will get a unique enough piece of content to be fine both with Google and with your site's visitors.

By the way, the moral side of the question can be solved by striking a deal with the original content's owner to buy the rights for translations. For most of them, it would be free money as only few target international markets.