Websites are continually changing. When content is updated, the GDN typically captures these changes automatically (when changed pages are browsed), enabling the usual translation of new or modified content. Yet, changes in the website's structure, such as HTML code, or JSON structure, could result in content not being detected by the GDN. Changes in the underlying web technology can require significant GDN configuration adjustments.
Change Management
Any change to your website needs to be managed with the GDN. Well-managed changes keep your website fully translated as it evolves; poorly managed changes lead to unintentional 'bleed through' of the source language on translated pages.
With bleed through, there are two possible causes to address:
Content is captured
Captured content that appears untranslated on your localized pages, happens due to the delay between when new content is first captured and when the corresponding translations are published in Smartling.
Note: Smartling limits the capture of content via the Global Delivery Network to 10,000 strings within a 24-hour period.
The following options are available to help prevent displaying untranslated content on translated pages, and are described in more detail in the section 'Methods to minimize bleed through' below:
- Automatic Machine Translation: to instantly machine translate your website without having to authorize translation into a workflow.
- GDN Crawler: to crawl your site on a schedule to automatically capture new content.
- Jobs Automation Rules: to automatically bundle captured strings into a Job, with the option to automate authorization of the Job.
- Pre-publishing: to automatically display translations that are in-progress through the translation workflow.
- Use a staging environment: to capture new or updated source content on your staging site so that it can be translated before it goes live on your production site.
- Static cache: to cache the previous, fully translated version of a page until updated translations are published in Smartling.
Content is not captured
However, if content isn't initially captured, it can't be translated. If you’ve followed steps to capture the content but cannot locate the strings to create a Job in Smartling, it could be because the content is in a format that the GDN requires configuration to capture. This involves configuring explicit rules or directives, which is especially relevant for content in formats like JSON or JavaScript.
Since there are many different reasons why content is not captured, we recommend involving your Smartling team to help diagnose and address the issue. Once a suitable configuration rule is in place, the content will be captured and translation can be handled in the usual way.
For significant changes, like adding new domains or altering technology, such as a web development framework, it is essential to involve your Smartling team as early as possible. This will ensure that the appropriate configuration changes have been made and tested before your go-live date.
Tip: Remember, the people involved in your GDN are a team from implementation and throughout your website’s evolution. Dedicating sufficient time to testing during implementation and before launching any new website element is crucial to maintaining your translated website.
Methods to Minimize Bleed Through
Enable Automatic Machine Translation
One of the fastest solutions to avoiding untranslated text from displaying on your localized domains is to use automatic machine translations. Automatic Machine Translation instantly translates your website, without the need to authorize translation in a workflow. This ensures your end users experience a translated version of your website before you send the content to Smartling for translation, and until the workflow translations reach the published step.
Your Solutions Architect will discuss this option with you, and it may already be switched on. If you would like to check, follow the steps below.
Note: Automatic Machine Translation may not translate content that requires an advanced configuration.
How to enable automatic machine translation
- In your GDN project, click the Settings tab
- On the left-hand menu, click Machine Translation
- Under Automatic Machine Translation, toggle the switch to ON
- You can configure your preferred MT Profile to translate your website in Machine Translation settings.
- Once enabled, any new strings will automatically display a machine translation on the localized page.
Note: If you decide to authorize this content for translation in a Job, the published translations will overwrite the machine translations on your website.
Tip: While your website is automatically machine translated, you may want to still translate it through a translation workflow. To do so, follow the steps to translate a website.
Configure The GDN Crawler
The GDN Crawler can be configured to browse your site on a schedule, automatically capturing new content. You can control the site path the crawler browses, so only the frequently updated pages are continuously crawled. The crawl frequency should match the frequency of your website content updates.
Tip: For more information, including steps to configuring the GDN Crawler, read our documentation to Capture Your Website Content With The GDN Crawler.
Create Job Automation Rules
Captured content appears in your GDN Project awaiting authorization and needs to be bundled into a Job to initiate the translation process. You can create a Job manually for all or some strings to control what content is translated and when. However, this could lead to source bleed through if new content is awaiting authorization for a long time. To minimize bleed through, you can automate the Job creation process with Job Automation rules.
Tip: Creating and authorizing Jobs automatically may be helpful if you are familiar with your website's content and want new content sent for translation without requiring further approval.
Prepublish Translations
You can prepublish the translations that were saved on the translation step of your workflow, so they are displayed to end users next time they browse. This is especially useful if your workflow includes multiple workflow steps, which extend the overall turnaround time of your translation jobs. If translations are edited by the reviewers throughout the workflow, the updated translation will replace the prepublished translation when it is saved on the workflow step.
How to prepublish translations
Translations can be prepublished manually and automatically.
Manually (string view)
To pre-publish translations that are still in progress:
- In your GDN project, go to the Strings View
- Select the strings to be pre-published
- Click Actions > Prepublish
Automatically (on a workflow step)
If you would like to always pre-publish the translations once they are saved on a particular step in your workflow, such as before an internal review step, you can make use of the option to pre-publish strings on a particular workflow step.
To always pre-publish translations on a workflow step:
- In your GDN project, go to the Settings > Workflows
- It is important to note that if prepublishing is enabled on a workflow step of an Account Workflow, strings in any project that uses that workflow will also be prepublished.
- On the step of the workflow that you want to prepublish from (e.g. Translation), click Manage Step
- Under Automation, choose to prepublish strings when the user clicks save, or when the user saves and submits the strings to the next step.
Tip: For more information on prepublish translations, read our documentation on Prepublishing Translations and the Prepublishing FAQ.
Use a staging environment
It is also possible to connect the GDN to your website in its staging environment, so you can push the translated staging site to production. Connecting the GDN to your staging site helps to manage the timing of website updates and content publication, ensuring that end users experience a consistent and fully translated website.
The content from the staging site can be captured and put into a translation job as usual. Translations will be available on staging as soon as they are published in Smartling. You can then proceed to QA the translated experience on staging to ensure quality control. If you discover change requirements in staging, ensure to consult your GDN team about any adjustments required to the website’s structure, design and GDN configuration.
Provided that strings on staging are the same as production, translations can be leveraged for the production site, once the content goes live and is browsed by an end user. Pages must be an exact match in words, whitespaces, punctuation, placeholders and potential hidden element.
Tip: For more guidance on your environment strategy, consult Smartling Professional Services.
Enable Static Cache
Another option to prevent untranslated content from showing up on your localized pages is Static Cache.
The Static Cache takes effect when a page, previously translated, is updated with new content. Instead of displaying the new content in the source language while translations are in progress, the Static Cache shows the previous fully translated version of the page. Consequently, the end user views the fully translated page rather than the updated content.
Once all the new translations for the page have been published in Smartling, the updated version of the page will then be displayed.
For more information on Static Cache and how to enable it, read our documentation on Setup Translation Cache and the Static Cache FAQ.
Why HTML changes result in a string being re-captured for translation
When translating web content, it’s not just the visible text that matters—HTML elements within a string play a crucial role in how that text is displayed and functions on your website. Even minor changes to the HTML, such as adding or removing tags or reordering elements, can impact the meaning and formatting of the content, potentially leading to issues like:
- Incorrect Rendering: HTML tags define how the content appears on the webpage. Altering these tags can cause the translated string to render incorrectly, resulting in formatting issues or broken elements on the site.
- Contextual Accuracy: HTML changes can modify the structure or emphasis of the content (e.g., bolding a word, creating a link, adding line breaks), which can influence how the text should be translated. Proper translation needs to account for these changes to ensure the translated content remains accurate and meaningful.
If a string is re-captured for translation, it doesn’t necessarily mean you will need to pay full translation costs to have the string re-translated, Fuzzy Match Profiles and features like SmartMatch can reduce or eliminate costs. The translation process is important as it assures that every aspect of the content, including HTML, is carefully reviewed and adapted for the target language. When an HTML change is detected, the updated content is treated as a new string. This is done to ensure:
- Consistency: the translated content is consistent with the updated HTML structure, preserving both the formatting and functionality intended by the change.
- Accuracy: the translation reflects any new emphasis or structural changes introduced by the HTML modification.
- Safety: proper handling of HTML within translations helps prevent issues arising from broken tags, incorrect nesting, or other HTML-related problems that could impact your site.
Tracking Active Content
The Strings View of your GDN project lists all strings captured by the GDN in Smartling. Strings authorized for translation will remain in the project indefinitely, even if they are no longer used on your source website(s). If you want to hide strings that haven't appeared on your site recently, check out the GDN's String Activity Tracking feature.