In a globalizing world, the internet plays an important role in helping people communicate with each other. However, if you want to benefit from the benefits of this communication, you need to speak the same language with the people you want to reach. Website translation is one of the methods used by global brands that want to make their voices heard by large masses. It is very important for brands that want to show their presence in the global world to translate their websites into the native language of their target customers. According to research, people show much more interest in content presented in their native language, which emphasizes the importance of having a website translated using professional website localization services. Have you ever wondered which is the world’s most translated website? Let’s take a look at the world’s most translated websites in the world.
What Makes a Website Most Translated in the World?
Firstly, it is necessary to know what factors are taken into account to be the most translated website in the world. Although it is possible to obtain different results when evaluated from different perspectives, when we say the world’s most translated website, we look at how many language versions the website has. The more language options a website has on its interface, the more languages it has been translated into. In this context, big companies such as Wikipedia, Google and Apple come to mind first. Although the websites of these large companies are also translated into many languages, the world’s most translated website is JW. org, the official website of Jehovah’s Witnesses. According to 2020 data, the website is available in 1020 languages.
The Jehovah’s Witness website’s language options include some of the world’s most widely spoken languages, such as English, German, Spanish and Chinese, as well as languages that few people have heard of, such as Amharic, Basque, Curripaco or Bembe.
The World’s Most Translated Websites
As mentioned above, in order to qualify a website as the most translated website in the world, it is necessary to look at how many language options users can choose for the pages on the site. Here are the world’s most translated websites according to this criterion, often achieved with the help of professional translation services:
1. Jehovah Witnesses
Inside the world’s most translated websites, the most translated website is the website of Jehovah’s Witnesses. While Google, with its 1.7 billion users worldwide, offers language options in 287 languages, the jw. org website, with only 8. 6 million readers, provides content in 1020 language options. What’s remarkable is that among these extensive language options, it includes not only widely spoken languages like English, Chinese, and Spanish but also languages spoken by a relatively small number of people, such as Amharic, Basque, Curripaco, or Bembe, spoken by anywhere from 1000 to 3000 individuals.
It’s not particularly surprising that the website offering the most language options in the world is focused on religious teachings rather than commercial purposes. This is because people view jw. org as a source of religious revelation and seek to spread it to the entire world. It is understandable that a faith that wants to spread all over the world should be found in every language.
2. Wikipedia
Created by a network of users, Wikipedia is one of the world’s most popular websites and a reference source for people all over the world. Inside the world’s most translated websites Wikipedia, to which anyone can contribute content, an estimated 37 million articles on Wikipedia have been translated into 300 different languages. The reason why the figure is estimated is that not all content on the site has been translated into all languages. Popular articles are translated into many languages, while less popular articles are translated into fewer languages.
Originally planned to be a digital encyclopedia where only experts in their field could write articles, Wikipedia has evolved over time into a version that anyone can contribute to. The fact that everyone can contribute has also made it a multilingual website, with different versions available in about 300 languages worldwide. The number of active websites is lower due to dialect differences. Languages with many different dialects, such as Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, do not have the same number of Wikipedia versions.
3. Google
Despite being the world’s largest and most popular search engine, Google has very little textual content. The Google website has been translated into an estimated 164 languages. However, basic information and instructions are only available in English.
The best part of Google, which helps you search the entire internet, is that it provides you with information for business websites based on your location. This means that by understanding Google’s algorithms, you can make your business website more accessible globally and optimize its reach to potential customers. Also, Google can provide you with business information in the language of your choice.
4. Apple
Apple is one of the world’s most recognizable brands, a manufacturer of personal computers, smartphones, tablet computers and computer software. Having popularized the graphical user interface, Apple is known in many parts of the world for its marketing strategies that take into account local factors.
Inside the world’s most translated websites, Apple’s website has been translated into 130 different languages, making it one of the most translated websites in the world. Although this number is less than Samsung’s 166 language options in the IT world, Apple is one step ahead in adapting its content to each language.
5. Facebook
As a social networking platform, Facebook’s content is generated by users. It is difficult to translate texts that are quickly generated by users on Facebook, so translation on Facebook is real-time. To enable communication between people speaking many different languages around the world, the Facebook website uses automatic translation software. This software translates user comments and posts into foreign languages.
Available in 101 languages, human translation is crucial for Facebook’s growth. Because 1.7 billion Facebook users speak many different languages. This number is expected to increase much more in the coming years and 40 more languages are expected to be added to Facebook.
The Future of Website Translation
The list of the world’s most translated websites will surely change in the coming years. It is likely that companies that we do not even see on the list now will climb to the top. If globalization continues at this rate, the websites of companies will expand to cover many more languages.
As the area covered by the Internet increases in human life, the desire of companies to reach their target customer base in their native languages will also increase. Because people want global brands to speak to them in their mother tongue. If we go even further, almost half of internet users tend to show no interest in websites that do not broadcast in their mother tongue.
Therefore, it would not be wrong to say that in the future, many more global brands will rely heavily on localization services to compete for the title of the world’s most translated website.
