Wikipedia Translation & Multilingual Editions
Wikipedia is not one site — it is hundreds of self-governing language editions, each with its own notability bar, sourcing norms, style rules and, in several cases, its own paid-contribution disclosure policy. A page "translated" into another edition without rebuilding it for that edition's rules is a deletion candidate on arrival.
WikiBusines prices and delivers pages across a 160-edition price book, and treats every edition as a separate editorial project: local rules, local sources where they exist, and a local review channel. Translation here means rebuild, never machine output.
Why rebuild, not translate
Machine-translating an English article into German or Ukrainian produces text that fails three separate local checks at once:
- Local rules differ. Each edition sets its own notability interpretations, citation formats and article structures — and under the Wikimedia Terms of Use, individual projects can even adopt their own disclosure policies, so the compliance model changes per edition.
- Local sources matter. Reviewers in a given edition weigh coverage in their language and their media landscape; an article sourced entirely to English outlets reads as imported PR in many editions.
- Local reviewers decide. Each edition has its own review culture and its own patrols — text that smells machine-translated is a known fast-delete trigger.
A rebuild starts from the source matrix, re-weighs it for the target edition, restructures the article to local conventions, and submits through that edition's review channel — the same discipline as primary page creation, repeated per edition.
Notability is not portable
The least understood fact in multilingual Wikipedia work: a subject can qualify in one edition and fail in another, because each community interprets significance against its own source universe. A Ukrainian company with deep Ukrainian press coverage may hold easily in the Ukrainian edition and fail the English one; a US-covered brand may clear English Wikipedia and have nothing to stand on in German.
That is why every multilingual project begins with a per-edition notability read, not a list of desired languages. Editions where the subject cannot hold are named upfront and removed from scope — paying for a page that local reviewers will delete serves nobody. The assessment logic is the same three-test notability audit, applied per edition; the Premium audit tier covers two editions, the Comprehensive tier runs multi-market source discovery.
The price book: 160 editions, four tiers
Pricing follows a published 160-edition price book, refreshed annually:
- Tier 1 — 11 editions (English, German, Dutch, Italian, Arabic, Chinese, Turkish, Danish, Thai, Hindi, Russian): English €1,930 company / €1,300 personal; the other ten €1,450 / €1,100.
- Tier 2 — 40 editions (incl. Ukrainian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, Japanese, Korean, Hebrew, Simple English): €1,220 / €1,000.
- Tier 3 — 59 editions (incl. Catalan, Indonesian, Serbian, Romanian, Tamil, Swahili): from €780.
- Tier 4 — 50 editions (incl. Afrikaans, Zulu, Hausa, Yoruba): from €600.
The twelve most-ordered editions are English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Ukrainian, Arabic, Chinese and Japanese. Current figures: wikibusines.net/wikipedia-page-creation.
Choosing editions strategically
More editions is not better — the right editions are. The selection logic that pays:
- Where your buyers and hires search. An edition earns its fee when the audience that matters reads in that language — expansion markets, investor geographies, hiring pools.
- Where your sources live. Editions whose media landscape already covers you are cheap to hold; editions with zero local coverage are expensive to defend.
- What feeds AI answers in each language. AI assistants answer in the user's language and draw heavily on that language's Wikipedia — a presence in the right editions is multilingual AI visibility infrastructure.
- Sequencing. A defensible anchor article first, then editions in descending order of audience value — each rollout reuses the source pack, which is why multi-edition packages carry tiered discounts of 4–22%.
Multi-edition rollouts and enterprise scale
For portfolios of three editions and up, packaged rollouts replace per-page pricing: an English anchor plus additional editions with source-pack reuse discounts, a coordinated release calendar, and first-year support options. Packages run from Essential 3 (English + 2 editions, from €4,826 net) through Global 7 and Global 10 up to Enterprise 15–30 editions with milestone billing, legal source-approval workflow and SLA terms. Each published edition carries the same 90-day monitoring window; annual support and Wikimonitoring scale to portfolios with bundle discounts from 10 pages.
Frequently asked
Do you machine-translate the English article into other languages?
No — every edition gets a rebuild, not a translation. Each Wikipedia language edition has its own notability bar, sourcing norms, structure conventions and review culture, and machine-translated text is a known fast-delete trigger in many of them. The source matrix is re-weighed for the target edition, the article is restructured to local conventions, and it goes through that edition's own review channel.
My company has an English Wikipedia page — does it automatically qualify in other editions?
No. Notability is not portable: each edition's community judges significance against its own source universe, so a subject can hold in English and fail in German, or hold in Ukrainian and fail in English. Every multilingual project therefore starts with a per-edition notability read, and editions where the subject cannot hold are removed from scope before money is spent.
How much does a Wikipedia page in another language edition cost?
By the 160-edition price book: Tier-1 editions €1,450 (company) / €1,100 (personal), with English at €1,930 / €1,300; Tier-2 editions, including Ukrainian, French and Spanish, €1,220 / €1,000; Tier 3 from €780; Tier 4 from €600. Multi-edition rollouts carry source-pack reuse discounts of 4–22%, and packaged programs start at Essential 3 from €4,826 net.
Which language editions should we start with?
Start where three lines cross: where your buyers, investors or hires actually read; where your existing media coverage gives the article sources to stand on; and where AI assistants answering in that language will draw on the edition. In practice that usually means one defensible anchor edition first, then two to six editions in descending order of audience value — not the longest list the budget allows.