The Google Translate website widget: who can still use it

The Google Translate website widget, which Google calls the Website Translator, is something you add to your site that, in Google's words, "translates web page content into 100+ different languages" using Google's machine translation. Google does not offer it to every site. Its help center says academic institutions and government, nonprofit or non-commercial websites "may be eligible to sign up", through a form. A business site that does not meet those terms needs another route: the visitor's own browser, the Cloud Translation API, or a translation plugin. And whichever site uses it, the widget gives search engines no translated pages to index.

Who Google offers the widget to today#

Google's pages give two versions of the terms.

The Google Translate help center, on its page about translating documents and websites, says: "If you're an academic institution or government, nonprofit, or non-commercial website, you may be eligible to sign up for the Google Translate Website Translator shortcut." It adds that the tool "translates web content into over 100 languages" and points to a sign-up form.

The form, and the Search Central blog post from May 2020 that reopened access, set a narrower condition. The blog post says usage "will be restricted to government, non-profit, and/or non-commercial websites (for example, academic institutions) that focus on COVID-19 response". The form repeats the COVID-19 condition and adds that Google "reserves the right to terminate your access to the Website Translator immediately" if a site does not fit.

For every other website, the 2020 post says, "we recommend using the Google Cloud Translation API". The old sign-up address for the widget on translate.google.com now forwards to the Cloud Translation product page, which points the same way.

If your site is a company's marketing site, a shop or a SaaS product, you are outside both versions of the terms. Some plugin vendors' sites also state a date on which Google will retire the widget. On 2026-10-07 we found no Google page that announces one, so we do not repeat it here; check Google's help center for the current position before you plan around it.

What the widget does for search#

Google describes the widget as translating the content of the page a visitor is reading. It is not a way to publish a French page at a French address, so as far as a search engine is concerned, the site still has one page per URL, in its original language.

Google's documentation explains why that matters. It recommends "using different URLs for each language version of a page rather than using cookies or browser settings to adjust the content language on the page", and warns that with content changed by language settings "Google might not find and crawl all your variations", because its crawler "usually originates from the USA" and "sends HTTP requests without setting Accept-Language in the request header". It also says Google uses "the visible content of your page to determine its language", which for a page translated only on request is the original.

So a widget does not help you rank in another language. A German searcher will not find your page through a German query, because no German version exists for Google to index. Our article on whether machine translation hurts SEO covers the difference between in-browser and served translations in more depth.

What visitors get#

The widget shows machine translation, and Google's pages about it describe no step for you to review or correct that output before visitors read it. Google is open about the quality in the 2020 post: its translations "may not be perfect", so readers should "use your best judgement". For a public notice that is a fair trade. For a product page with prices, names and legal terms, it means visitors read text that nobody on your team has checked. Our look at how accurate Google Translate is collects published evaluations by language.

Keeping words out of the translation is less simple than it looks. Google documents a notranslate rule as a meta tag, <meta name="googlebot" content="notranslate">, which "tells Google that you don't want us to provide a translation for this page" in Google Search. For the Cloud Translation API, Google's troubleshooting page lists <span translate="no"> and <span class="notranslate"> for keeping a phrase as written, for Cloud Translation Advanced with HTML input. We found no Google page that says the Website Translator widget honours either attribute, so test your brand and product names on your own pages if you use it.

The options when you cannot use the widget#

Let visitors use their browser#

Many visitors can already translate your page without anything from you. Chrome's help center describes it: "On the right of the address bar, select Translate," or right-click and choose "Translate to" a language. Visitors get the same kind of machine translation the widget gives, with the same lack of review and the same lack of anything for search engines to index. If all you wanted from the widget was a convenience for occasional foreign visitors, the browser may already cover it.

Build on the Cloud Translation API#

The API is what Google recommends for other sites, and it is cheap for the engine itself. Google's pricing page lists the first 500,000 characters a month as free, applied as a $10 monthly credit, and $20 per million characters after that on the Basic edition. The engine is the easy part. You or a developer still build what decides which text to send, stores the result, serves it at its own URL and notices when the original changes.

Use a WordPress translation plugin#

On WordPress, GTranslate is a plugin built on Google Translate. Its WordPress.org page lists more than 900,000 active installations. Its free version translates in the visitor's browser with Google Translate, and GTranslate's own page says the free version gives no SEO advantage, because the URL does not change and translations are not stored. GTranslate's terms limit the free version to personal, educational, internal testing, nonprofit or governmental use that does not directly generate revenue, so a commercial site needs a paid plan. Its paid plans start at $12 a month for one extra language, with all languages at $25 a month, and they act as a translating proxy that serves each language at its own URL for search engines to index. GTranslate works on any HTML site, which is its strength off WordPress. Our LangRelay vs GTranslate page compares the two in detail.

From a widget to translated pages you control#

The step up from any widget is the same: give each language its own URL, put the translated text in the HTML your server sends, and have someone check it before it goes live.

LangRelay does this for WordPress. The plugin serves each language under its own subdirectory, such as /de/, with hreflang and a canonical per language, and translated titles and meta descriptions. Theme, menu and page-builder text is translated from the rendered page, so nothing needs exporting. Translations go live by default, with free checks that hold a page with untranslated text, the wrong language or a changed price; to approve every page yourself, choose Ask me first. You can keep a name as written with a glossary entry on paid plans, so a brand name stays as written. When a page changes, the plugin reports the edit about a minute later and only the new text is translated.

For a site that is not on WordPress, LangRelay has a script embed. Like the widget, it translates in the visitor's browser and gives no SEO benefit. Unlike the widget, it shows only approved translations. Our language switcher page shows what visitors see.

If you are moving off the widget and want to see your own pages served as translated URLs, book a demo.

Questions people ask about the Google Translate widget#

Is the Google Translate website widget free?#

Google's pages about the widget mention no price. Access is limited to the sites its terms describe: academic institutions and government, nonprofit or non-commercial sites, with the form and the 2020 post adding a COVID-19 focus. A commercial site is pointed to the Cloud Translation API, which is paid beyond its free monthly allowance.

Can I add Google Translate to a WordPress site?#

If your site meets Google's terms, you can sign up for the widget through Google's form. You can also use a WordPress plugin instead. GTranslate's free version uses Google Translate in the browser for non-commercial sites, and translation plugins that serve translated URLs, LangRelay among them, are the route when you also want search traffic in other languages.

Does the Google Translate widget help SEO?#

No. It creates no translated URLs, and Google's documentation says its crawler sends no language preference and decides a page's language from its visible content. Search engines see the original page only.