Content localization

Glopal Localization Proxy is placed between the browser and the origin site that is used as source content for localization. When a buyer visits a page on the localized site, Glopal Localization Proxy forwards this request to the origin site. The original site responds with requested information and the Localization Proxy adapts the reply before presenting it to the buyer.

When the Localization Proxy sends back information to the browser, it rewrites, adds, or removes page elements to render the page in the target language and currency, with required customizations. This whole process happens in real-time.

Content Source and variations

In the default setup, all localized sites are created from the same source content.

It is often required to make some content variations, for example, to show different delivery information or a regulatory notice on a particular localized site.

All variations can be prepared in the original source language, and Glopal will localize content to the target language. For some legal content, you may want to prepare content in the target language and switch off localization. Note that in such a case, excluded content will always appear as is, even if the buyer decides to change to another language.

Include all content variations in the page

One option is to include all content variations in the same source page and apply specific CSS classes to selectively show/hide parts of content on each site, including your origin site.

Prepare dedicated page variants

For larger content variations, like different Terms of Conditions or Privacy Policy, an alternative option is to prepare several variations of the page.

There are two options how to allow Glopal Localization Proxy to fetch a specific version of the content when serving localized content:

  • Keep variants on the same URL, configuring your origin site to return different content based on the identification from Glopal - query parameter, cookie, or HTTP request header

  • Publish variants on different URLs, and configure Glopal Localization Proxy to transparently fetch content from the correct URL

Prepare separate source sites

Glopal Localization Proxy can be configured to use different source sites when creating localized sites. You can have one site as a source for localizing in some markets, and another source site for other markets.

Working with separate source sites adds a challenge for site discovery and linking a page from one site to the matching page on the other localized site. Cross-content linking is key for search engine optimization and for directing traffic based on GeoIP information or country selection. We generally recommend using the same source for all localized sites.

Content Translation

When the Glopal localization solution gets the origin response from the Web server, it identifies every element from the source page that should be translated. According to HTML tags and the source page structure, it splits those elements into segments. Each segment needs to be translated separately and this is the role of the Glopal Translation Engine component.

Glopal Translation Engine first searches its translation memory to look up for matching segments translations from the source language to the target language. If a matching translation is found, it will be used to replace the original segment content with the translated one on the page rendered by the browser.

If there is no matching translation found in the translation memory, Glopal Translation Engine will trigger a machine translation to provide the content of the translated segment.

Translation quality is a key success factor to increase sales on localized sites. This is the reason why Glopal proposes a hybrid approach when it comes to managing translations. High-quality machine translation is a robust solution that enables merchants to quickly develop their cross-border sales with no additional efforts. However, Glopal also provides tools to proofread content and apply translation edits in case merchants want to customize terms according to their brand glossaries.

HTML segmentation

Glopal is using HTML structure to split the content into translatable parts, or segments.

A set of configurable rules are marking what HTML elements content and attributes are to be considered translatable, including button labels, image titles and alternative text, and different page meta tags.

By default, every HTML text or translatable attribute content is split into a separate segment.

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