SharePoint 2013 Variations - Introduction

Organizations doing business in global market need to tailor web content to address local languages and cultural preferences for each target market. The process of translating content in local languages and tailoring content is also known as "Localization". This series will cover how SharePoint 2013 addresses localization needs for a global website. 

SharePoint has an out of the box feature know as "Variations". This feature in SharePoint Server 2013 and SharePoint Online makes content available to specific audiences on different sites by syncing content from a source variation site to each target variation site. When users visit the root site, they are redirected to the appropriate variation site, based on the language setting of their web browser. Content on a target variation site can be translated into other languages before it is published. Variations can be used only on sites that are created by using one of the Publishing site templates, or on sites for which the SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure feature was activated.

Following posts will guide through developing multilingual site using SharePoint 2013:

Part 1: Initial setup and configuration for variations site Part 2: Creation and synchronization of content between source and target sites Part 3: Managed Navigation on variation site Part 4: Content Translation...coming soon!