Strategies for translation, localization, and rollout

Experience Workspace can help you localize your content, but there are a number of considerations before you get started. It is also good to understand the terms used when localizing content.

Vocabulary

• Sync - When a doc is supplied, but does not match where the language expects it, Experience Workspace will offer to "sync" it to the correct source location for the language.
• Translate - This is the act of taking a document in one language and converting it into a different language.
• Transcreate - This is the process of adapting a message from one language to another, while maintaining its intent, style, and tone.This is typically associated with LLM-based translation services.
• Localize - This is the process of converting a document to have more locale-centric or regionally-centric content.
• Rollout - This is the technical term for copying documents from a single language folder and into multiple locales or regions.
• Locale - A locale is a pairing of a language and region to reflect regional language variations.
• Region - A region is a logical but general geographical location.

Introduction to Experience Workspace localization

Experience Workspace provides several services to help automate the translation, localization, and rollout of content. While on-demand services like Google Translate or even built-in browser translations can be convenient, they can have non-ideal SEO impacts.

Managing localized content at scale can be a challenge due to the amount of content that is created. Experience Workspace gives you the freedom to be as hand-on or hands-off as needed for your project. You can choose to merge documents and compare changes across the entire lifecycle of your localization projects.

Strategies

It is important to pick a localization strategy that fits your needs. Adobe's best practices can be read on aem.live. The basic strategies are as follows:

Language-based

Simply translate your content into different languages.

• /en
• /fr
• /de
• /cn

Regionally-based

Group regions and translate the content within each.

• /ch - Switzerland region
• /ch/de - Swiss German
• /ch/fr - Swiss French
• /ch/it - Swiss Italian

Locale-based

Translate directly into specific regions with specific languages.

• /en-us
• /en-ca
• /en-in
• /fr-fr
• /fr-ca
• /de-de
• /zh-cn

Hybrid (language-based)

Translate into different languages, optionally rollout to specific regions.

• /en
• /en/us
• /fr
• /fr/ca
• /de
• /de/ch
• /zh
• /zh/

Recommendation

If you're simply looking to have your content available in different languages, we recommend a language-based approach. If you have regionally specific content, common for ecommerce sites, we recommend using a region-based approach.

Locale-based and hybrid provide flexibility for scenarios where your site is mostly language-based, but you would like to have some regional or locale-specific content. It is also possible to have a hybrid region-based where only some pages are available in certain languages.

Other considerations

While a language-based approach can provide less overhead, you may run into complexities with commerce, currencies, and VAT.

A locale-based approach may provide simplicity in commerce, but it will create undesired duplication of content that can be unfriendly for SEO.

A hybrid model where the site is predominantly language-based keeps content duplication low. You will still have similar language-based commerce considerations, but this would be considered the preferred option over locale-based.

Next Steps

Once you are clear on your localization needs and your strategy, you can set up your own translation.