I am looking to implement a quick and dirty solution on a global site
that can translate content on the fly. If you were to load a page in
english selecting say the 'French' icon would reload the page in
french. Do these services exist? Where can I find them? How much do
they cost?

Hello mailman,

There is a variety of products out there, with costs ranging from free
to $1000s.

“SYSTRANLinks is a turnkey website translation solution. SYSTRANLinks
transforms standard websites and content applications into interactive
multilingual hubs, all within seconds.”
“On-the-fly translation: the translations are automatically updated
whenever your website is modified.
Easy to install: just copy and paste our translation button on your
homepage.
Fluid navigation allows translation of your whole website in just one
click.”
The languages and features available depend on the level of service
selected.
The Bronze entry level costs $450/year, with no set up fee.  The
highest Gold 2 level carries a set up fee of $2,700 and annual charges
of $24,300.
A free trial is available. The Systran engine was used to create
Bablefish and Google’s language tools.
http://w4.systranlinks.com/ 

Tranexp has a similar offering, Intertran, at prices from $995
“It will translate your web pages on-the-fly regardless of how many
changes/updates have been made. This way you can keep all the
different language versions of your web pages continuously updated and
correct”
http://www.tranexp.com/

Worldlingo costs from $29.95 for a single language to $99.95 for the
all (=12) language pack.
“Instant on-the-fly translation: Fast, dynamic machine translation
technology means WorldLingo updates its translations whenever you
modify your website.
 Easy to install: No translation software needed! All translations are
web based for your convenience. Simply cut & paste the code into your
pages.
Translate links: Allows translation of your whole website in just one
click.
 Support for: JavaScripts, cookies, secure pages, data forms, user
dictionaries.
Visitor Tracking: valuable demographic tracking device, it monitors
and reports the languages your site is viewed in.”
http://www.worldlingo.com/products_services/website_translation.html 

However, most amazingly, there is even freeware available:
“TransLingo helps you target these remaining 50% users by making your
website multilingual. It provides dynamic translation of your website
to and from over 30 languages!
TransLingo is Freeware, which means that it is free for both private
and commercial use. However, since TransLingo uses free translation
services provided by other companies like Systran, you should have
look at the Terms of Use of the translation service.”
You can see the system in action on the Translingo page, by selecting
a language from the drop down menu on the left.  This will show you
the page translated into that language.
http://www.rohitab.com/cgiscripts/translingo.html 

Search strategy: "on the fly" translation web page

Thanks for such a speedy response.