In an article on CMSWire, Gerry McGovern writes about how some companies rewrite their website content to make it easier (and therefore cheaper) to translate, resulting in bad websites in the source language and even worse websites in the target language.

It often seems that the primary purpose of localization is to create unreadable English that is cheap to translate into unreadable German.

A great many organizations do not believe content has any real value. They see it is as a cost, a necessary evil. Thus, they want to produce content for the lowest possible cost.

This approach leads to awful websites that lose sales, infuriate customers and damage the brand and reputation of the organization. What senior managers in particular have failed to realize is that these days the first impression many customers get of an organization comes from its website. First impressions last.

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Cheap, badly-written, awfully-translated content spends its toxic life circling the drain. But it never really flushes away. It just leaves a stain on your reputation and brand. And if you don’t believe that then you don’t believe in the power of the Web.

Read the full article.