Costs optimization - how vBET allows to use machine translation FREE and/or CHEAPER

[vBET]

Below you will find list of hints how to use translations completelly FREE or cheaper if some languages are not supported by FREE API's.

• Disable not necessary languages
• Use many machine translation providers (APIs)
• Use free language detection or not at all
• Check all configurations described here
• Use database cache
• Do not clear database cache
• Do not translate numbers
• Use time and date formats without letters
• Do not translate usernames
• Do not translate code html tag
• Allow more people for manual translations
• Always use newest vBET version
• Do not translate pages you do not want to be translated
• Maybe you do not want to translate old threads
• Maybe you want to translate only threads form specific time period
• Block member pages for banned users
• Consider switching vBulletin 3.x to 4.x
• Avoid changing texts in GUI

[vBET]

For most forums 53 languages are not needed. You can simply disable as many languages as you want in configuration: Admin CP -> vBET -> Translation Options -> Enable Translations (3 parts). Less supported languages means less translations and maybe it will be enough to use only free providers (not all supports all language pairs). Also please note that less languages means potentially less traffic, users and income from advertisements, so you need to made your choice.

Please keep in mind that also good strategy is to enable only few languages at the beginning (best those supported by free providers) and then add more languages from time to time. This will be also better option for your SEO.

NOTE: By default are enabled only those languages which can be translated completely free all to all!

[vBET]

vBET automatically queues translation providers using free and cheaper before more expensive where it is possible. Not all providers supports all languages, but vBET recognizes which pairs are supported by which providers. That is why it is wise to use more that one translation provider. Excluding those who not supports actual language pair the default queue order at this moment is:
Apertium, Yandex, Microsoft, SDL BeGlobal, Google.

The order optimizes costs and it is configurable - for more details please see description of Admin CP -> vBET -> Translation Providers -> Use Google ONLY
Priorities in default order are:
- Cost
- Quotas
So free with no quota APIs are before free with high quota APIs, which are before free with low quota APIs, which are before cheaper paid APIs, which are before more expensive paid APIs. This way when several APIs are OK for language pair vBET is using the one which is not only cheapest but also has biggest quota, so those API with less quota are not used for languages covered by others and can be still used for language pairs not covered by others, becasue the quota was saved.

NOTE: for each used machine translation provider you must set API key in Admin CP -> vBET -> Translation Providers

NOTE FOR SUPPORTED PROVIDERS DESCRIPTIONS BELOW:
- It do not represent any sale offer
- It can be old/not accurate/wrong - but it was OK when it was made. Please let us know if you find any wrong description and we will correct it.
- It do not compares quality of translation nor speed of machine translation at all
- It is only explanation why default order is in this, not the other way

APERTIUM machine translation API

• FREE
• No information about quota
• Supports not too many language pairs, and not all to all
• Sometimes ends with timeout errors and internal errors - vBET recognizes it and do not adds to cache such results
• Recommended to USE IT AS SUPPORT WITH OTHER PROVIDERS, but not necessary - cannot relay only on this one, but still it is worth to use since it is free

YANDEX machine translation API

• FREE
• Very high FREE quota - 1 000 000 characters/DAY
• Supports over 30 languages but not all to all
• Highly recommended to USE IT AS SUPPORT WITH FREE MICROSOFT - because it doesn't support all to all language pairs, it is good to use other APIs too (if you care about multilingual community and posts written in other languages that your forum language).

MICROSOFT machine translation API

• FREE or paid
• Low FREE quota - 2 000 000 characters/month
• Supports over 30 languages - all to all translation (by default vBET has turned on only languages supported by Microsoft - configurable by Admin CP -> vBET -> Translation Options -> Enable Translations (3 parts))
• Highly recommended to USE IT AS BASE WITH OTHER FREE APIs - it supports all to all translation, so it can do translations not supported by other free APIs. It has low free monthly quota so you can use it:
  
  • Free and wait for new quotas. Some translations will be partial, but vBET will recognize it and translate later when quota will be available again. Meantime other free APIs will translate what they can so low Microsoft quota will be used only when it is really needed.
  • Like in previous option, but with disabled some of languages enabled by default - this way quota will be used not so fast, so partial translation will be rare or not happen at all.
  • Paid - Microsoft allows for several paid high quotas. Please see Microsoft Azure page for details about prices for their machine translation. This is paid by quota not by usage!
  • Free with other paid APIs (SDL BeGlobal, Google), which are cheaper and paid by usage not by quota.

IBM Watson machine translation API

• FREE or paid
• Low FREE quota - 1 000 000 characters/month
• Supports over 20 languages but not all to all
• Highly recommended to USE IT AS SUPPORT WITH FREE MICROSOFT - because it doesn't support all to all language pairs, it is good to use other APIs too (if you care about multilingual community and posts written in other languages that your forum language).

SDL BeGlobal machine translation API

• Paid but 1/4 cheaper than Google and Microsoft
• Supports lot of languages but not all to all
• If you want to use language pairs not supported by any free API (those not enabled by default), or you are using only default, but Microsoft quota ends too early for you, then using this API can be good option for you
  
  • Cost is $15 per 1 000 000 characters (paid by usage)
  • It is 1/4 cheaper than Google ($20)
  • It is cheaper than paid option of Microsoft
  • If you need to pay for translations USE IT WITH FREE MICROSOFT BEFORE YOU GO TO USE GOOGLE and even when you need to use Google, then use it with Google - it will cost less

Google machine translation API

• Paid but supports 53 languages all to all
• You pay only for what you use not for quota like in Microsoft
• More expensive than SDL BeGlobal (but supports more language pairs)
• Supports most languages and if you want to use those not enabled by default then you will have to use Google machine translation API
• If you need to use languages not enabled by default (not supported by any free API) USE IT WITH ALL OTHER FREE APIs AND PAID SDL BeGlobal. This way you will use what you can for free - even from Microsoft. When it is not possible to translate free, then SDL BeGlobal will be used as cheaper and Google, as more expensive will be used ONLY when no other API cannot be used (no support for language pair or no quota).

[vBET]

vBET supports free language detection API's and you can use detection completely free. You can also disable it by setting Admin CP -> vBET -> Language Detection -> Language Detection to value Always trust user, which is default but it is not recommended, since free quota is really high.
Still it is default, because setting language detection requires not only changing this parameter but also setting API key for provider in Admin CP -> vBET -> Translation Providers.
When API key is set and detection turned on, then you also have to choose which API will be used in option Admin CP -> vBET -> Language Detection -> Detection API

NOTE FOR SUPPORTED PROVIDERS DESCRIPTIONS BELOW:
- It do not represent any sale offer
- It can be old/not accurate/wrong - but it was OK when it was made. Please let us know if you find any wrong description and we will correct it.
- It do not compares quality nor speed of language detection at all

DetectLanguage language detection API

• FREE or paid if you want
• Very high FREE quota - 5 000 detections/DAY
• Detects all languages supported by vBET
• RECOMMENDED TO USE and it is default option (still detection have to be turned on and API key set)

Microsoft language detection API

• FREE or paid if you want
• But it has low quota and uses same quota as for translations
• Detects only languages supported by Microsoft (turned on by default)
• Because it is using free translation quota, it is NOT RECOMMENDED to use

Google language detection API

• PAID same as for translations
• Detects all languages supported by vBET
• Because it is paid, it is NOT RECOMMENDED to use

[vBET]

Please note that some values for options described here as default could have different default values before. Some APIs where added in time, some TOS where changed in time. Default value is set only when parameter is new, so when default is changing old installations will still have old default value set if it wasn't changed. Also you could change something and do not remember it.

That is why the best option for you is to check each recommendation in this thread to be sure that you are really using best costs optimizations.

[vBET]

Translations are always cost - even when you are using free machine translation providers, then it still costs performance (response time).
That it is wise to use database cache. You do not want to pay several times for same translation, nor wait each time for it.
When database cache is turned on vBET will cache translations locally and next time it will be available immediately. Also vBET will allow to manually update cached translations by forum users witch appropriate rights.

By default database cache is turned on and it should stay that way. Still vBET allows to turn it off for diagnostics. To be sure that your database cache is turned on please check option Admin CP -> vBET Cache -> Database Cache -> Use database cache

Also make sure that not only database cache is turned on, but also it is working for all languages (it can be disabled per language). To do this simply make sure that all 3 parts of option Admin CP -> vBET Cache -> Database Cache -> Cache details have all checkboxes marked. Please note that you can mark even languages for which you have disabled translations (flags) - it will simply be ignored. And it is better to have ignored cache option, than by mistake do not cache all translations for whole language.

[vBET]

Some time ago it was required by TOS of one translation provider to remove old cache (to be more specific it was allowed to cache only for 15 days). Right now it is not necessary and since some translations are paid it has no sense to delete data you paid for.

Now by default clearing database cache is disabled, but it is still allowed to change this configuration in case if TOS of some free API will change, or in case when you are using only free APIs, have small forum (so quota is not a problem), do not use manual translation and want your translation to be refreshed from time to time (maybe machine translation will be better next time).

So it is available to turn on automatic cache cleaning, but it is highly NOT recommended and you are not allowed to use it when you use manual translation (otherwise you will loose your manual translations).

To be sure that your database cache cleaning is disabled please make sure that option Admin CP -> vBET Cache -> Database Cache -> Cache Time to Live (TTL) is set to 0.
It is not necessary but you can additionally make sure that Admin CP -> vBET Cache -> Database Cache -> Cache clearing strategy is set to Disabled.

[vBET]

vBET allows to not translate numbers (configurable and enabled by default). Still it can be disabled, because it have some impact on performance (checking does each text for translation is a number) and perhaps for some languages it can be crucial to translate numbers too.
Still it is highly recommended to not translate numbers, because those can create endless translations. Many GUI parts includes changing numbers like: Views 12, Views 13, and so on. Right now vBET separates numbers (by HTML italic node), what made from the example only one translation Views and changing numbers which will not be translated when the option is on.

To be sure that you are not translating numbers please make sure that you have set option:
Admin CP -> vBET -> Translation Options -> Don't translate numbers
Also make sure that database cache is on (numbers are checked when asking cache for translation):
Admin CP -> vBET Cache -> Database Cache -> Use database cache

Please note that vBET will not translate then not only numbers but also dates and times (if in appropriate formats - please see next hint). Generally all texts which have only numbers and "#-.,: " characters (e.g.: "206", "2,340", "2013-08-04,") will not be translated. And GUI places where numbers, dates and times are included in text are separated as described earlier so still are not translated.

[vBET]

As described in previous hint vBET can separate dates, times and numbers from rest of GUI texts and do not translate those to avoid endless translations.
Still if your date or time will include letters, then it will be translated, because it will not be recognized as number (it can have numbers and "#-.,: " characters - space is included there).

So make sure you are using appropriate date and time formats:
- For only date format, you can have what you want - it is only 12 translations per year
- For only time format, do NOT use 12 hours system with AM/PM, but 24 hours system (format: H:i)
- For date and time, use only format with numbers and mentioned characters

Please note that some plugins can add their own parameters for dates and times.
For vBulletin time format please change Admin CP -> Settings -> Options -> Date and Time Options -> Format For Time to H:i

[vBET]

Usernames mostly have no real meaning so cannot be really translated. Also in many forums there is SPAM issue and even when spammers are banned fast, their accounts still exists (banned, but exists to block email for example).

So there is no sense to translate usernames and vBET has option which allows for that (by default enabled). It can be disabled to avoid small performance impact but it is not recommended.

To be sure that your forum do not translates usernames please check do you have set option Admin CP -> vBET -> Translation Options -> Don't translate usernames

Please note that usernames often are included in other GUI texts creating long translations, but vBET separate those on translated pages and will not translate it.