If you go looking for something, you’ll probably find it. And following that age-old maxim, if you or your company need translation support, be careful what you google. If you search for cheap translation services, chances are that’s what you’ll find.

You don’t really want a cheap translation, just like you don’t want a cheap nose job. If you’ve gone to the extent of creating text to represent yourself, your company, or your product, you don’t then want some online charlatan to take your work, crank it through a word matrix, and turn out some gibberish that makes you look, well, cheap. Below is a very good example of a cheap translation:

In translation, as in any other industry, it’s easy to overpay, and that’s something to avoid. You want translation services that are affordable and you want a translation service company that offers different levels and degrees of specialization to fit your practical needs and the limits of your budget. Those are reasonable expectations and the best translation companies will find a way to optimize their services within your budgetary limits. Good translation services are more affordable than you might think.

But while you don’t want to overpay, you most certainly don’t want to underpay. You do, after all, get what you pay for. If you’re sourcing translators, take it as an inviolate rule of the language universe that cheap translation services equal badly translated documents. Period.

So the next time you’re searching for translation services online, try terms like “affordable” or “reliable” or “scalable.” Stay away from “cheap.” Look for a company that offers a range of options including online and phone support with easy access to real humans who speak real English. Save the money you could waste on cheap translation services that lose more business than they attract and invest instead in a quality document that shows you in the light you deserve. Cheap light is unflattering.