At present the Internet contains millions of web sites and about 85% of them are in English. However, it is expected that the non-English speaking web users will outnumber the English-speaking users. Thus, it is no longer enough to translate local web sites only to English. In 2005, one expects the Web to reach one billion users and even 70% of them will be non- English speaking. It means that much effort has to be put into localisation of existing web sites and into the creation of new multilingual services, since it is certain that most web users prefer to be addressed in their native language, at least at the top-level pages of services. Customers, who are addressed in their own language, will stay at a site twice as long. 

The principle of machine translation: a raw translation of a document, from a source language into a target language, is made on the basis of a system of dictionaries and linguistic programs (e.g. SYSTRAN). The diagram shows the roles of human ressources and technology  applied on multilingual websites.

Machine translation quality mainly depends on the kind of documents (with typing errors or complex syntax, the result will be poor) language similarities and on specific dictionaries available.

SYSTRANLinks®  is a turnkey website translation solution. SYSTRANLinks transforms standard websites and content applications into interactive multilingual hubs, all within seconds. SYSTRANLinks offers all major European, Asian and Russian languages.

The Commission has been developing the Systran machine translation system since 1976. EC-SYSTRAN has been developed for internal purposes and is therefore distinct from the commercial version available and on Web sites such as Altavista. The system can produce 2 000 pages of raw translation per hour. Machine translation is accessible from a PC via a web interface and the electronic mail system. The translation is returned to the user within minutes. On request, EC SYSTRAN can be made available to public authorities, schools and universities in EU Member States (permission granted already for the life time of this project)