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How to Add Google Translate in WordPress

We live in a world filled with diverse languages. Linguists estimate there are around 6,000 to 7,000 different languages worldwide.

Even though many people understand English, translating your site can be worthwhile if a large portion of your audience speaks another language. Translating content ensures that everyone can access and understand the information you provide.

While searching for content about WordPress development, we might stumble across excellent content on French or Russian blogs. And we often use Google Translate to make sense of it, even if it’s not perfect.

In this article, we will guide you on how to add Google Translate to your WordPress site. This will help you reach a broader audience and improve user experience for non-English speakers.

Video Tutorial

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If you’d prefer written instructions, then continue reading.

Adding Google Translate in WordPress

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the Google Language Translator plugin.

After activating the plugin, you’ll want to go to Settings » Google Language Translator to configure the plugin.

Google Language Translator plugin settings

Make sure that the check box next to the ‘Plugin Status’ is checked.

After that, you’ll need to select your website’s default language and the languages you want to be available for translation.

Selecting languages

Now, let’s scroll down to the page to find the ‘Language Switcher Settings’ section.

Here, you can customize the switcher’s look and feel. You can customize the floating translation widget on your website by:

  • Choosing whether to display it or not
  • Selecting its position
  • Adjusting its size
  • Changing the text color to match your website’s design.
Customizing switcher's design

After customizing the settings for the Google Language Translator plugin, it’s time to publish it on your WordPress website.

Now, if you scroll down a bit further, you’ll find a quick guide for embedding switchers to your WordPress site. You can find it just right before the ‘Save Changes’ button at the bottom of the page.

A quick guide for embedding Google Language Translator

Simply follow the instructions, and you’ll have Google Language Translator embedded on your site.

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button before leaving the page.

Note: After publishing, you might notice that Google Translate allows your users to read a translated version of your website and translate it themselves.

This way, your readers can even help improve the machine translation of any page by suggesting improvements to Google translation. In fact, if you have a good reader base, then you can get your whole website translated by volunteers.

We hope this article helped you add Google Translate to your WordPress website. Next, you might want to check out our guide on how to translate a WordPress plugin in your language and our expert picks of the best right-to-left WordPress themes.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

51 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
    Every month, our top blog commenters will win HUGE rewards, including premium WordPress plugin licenses and cash prizes.
    You can get more details about the contest from here.
    Start sharing your thoughts below to stand a chance to win!

  2. Gabe

    how i make site LTR , RTL with Google Translate option? now it stays RTL even in english

    • WPBeginner Support

      It sounds like your theme may have had an error, if you have not done so already we would recommend reaching out to your theme’s support and they should be able to assist!

      Admin

  3. santa

    Does the translated website display content (translated) when people search on Google?

    • WPBeginner Support

      It is not guaranteed but it can be found on Google.

      Admin

  4. Nicky

    Thank you for this

    • WPBeginner Support

      You’re welcome :)

      Admin

  5. kerem turkman

    my site doesn’t have sidebars. how can i place translator widget to all my blog posts at once?

    • WPBeginner Support

      You would want to check with the support for your specific theme for what options it has available for locations.

      Admin

  6. Jans

    For some reason google page speed insight is seeing GTranslate plugin as the one slowing down my loading time the most. Is there a way to fix this?

    • WPBeginner Support

      You would want to reach out to the plugin’s support and they would be able to assist with the loading speed :)

      Admin

  7. gurpreet

    Hi. I tried to add the floating widget of google translate on my company’s website and chose punjabi language for translation, the main language being english. But the flag icon for punjabi is a Pakistani flag. We require an Indian flag since we are of Indian Nationality and Punjabi is spoken in Punjab state of India. Please help

  8. Pooja

    Hi Team,

    Google Language Translator plug in is also changing the name of my website that is there in the header of my website created on Wordpress.

    Can you please let me know how I can disable it from translating the name of my website.

    Regards,
    Pooja

    • WPBeginner Support

      Hi Pooja,

      You can stop Google Translate from translating a specific phrase by adding notranslate css class. For that you’ll need to edit your theme files or create a child theme.

      Inside your theme files, you need to locate the header.php file and find the line that displays your site’s title. Let’s assume that it looks like this:

      <h1 class="site-title"><a href="<?php echo esc_url( home_url( '/' ) ); ?>" rel="home"><?php bloginfo( 'name' ); ?></a></h1>
      

      You need to change it to this:

      <h1 class="site-title notranslate"><a href="<?php echo esc_url( home_url( '/' ) ); ?>" rel="home"><?php bloginfo( 'name' ); ?></a></h1>
      

      Hope this helps.

      Admin

  9. maryam

    Hi,

    I installed and used this plugin but it didn’t display on mobile devices, Does it work withe mobile devices ??

    Many thanks

  10. Niki

    Hi,

    does it work on mobile. I have added the plugin on my wordpress site. It works on computer but does not display on mobiles.

    Thanks!

  11. anil jhuria

    how to add google language translate in my wordpress site & not showing widget my page
    pls how to another opation to add google language translate

  12. Karthick

    Can I change the font of the Regional language?

  13. Sagar

    Can I add this to the primary menu?

    I want the google translate widget in menu.

  14. Amanda Payne

    Thank you so much. I had a few readers asking me why my site wouldn’t translate and now it does. I have visited your site daily learning all about WP. You are a great teacher! Thank you so much!

  15. Nujoom

    Hi I want to Make this Plugin Activate Arabic language Onload. How i can do that???

  16. Bo

    Just installed the plug-in and everything is working fine, though I’d like to improve the translation for the languages I do know. However, both when I am logged and checking out my site on a private browser, I am not able to change the translation myself.

    The plug-in page seems to suggest this is only possible in their Premium version. Is there a workaround or something I am missing?

    Thank you!

    • WPBeginner Support

      Visit the Google Translate website directly in a separate browser window. In the translate box, paste the URL of your website. Select the language you want to translate it to and hit the translate button. You should now be able to select text and improve translation.

      Admin

  17. pankaj chavan

    Is there a way when language is changed in google translate I can change images. Any parameter by google translate

  18. Ayman SABRA

    Hi, is there a way to Ad the google translate widget somewhere in the header or top right(/left) corner?
    I am very new to all of this and I have no knowledge of coding
    Thank you

  19. Kenneth Adair

    I love this plugin but the flags disappear when my sites fully open. That is to say I can see the flags until the site has fully opened and than all that is visible is the language box with a blank space where the flags were. The wordpress raindrops theme I am using is supposedly compatible!
    But I also installed it on an obsolete them that doesn’t even show up anymore on wordpress named Techozoic and it works 100% and I can’t wait to see the customers it may bring me.

  20. Anthony

    Have you or has any one reading this article tried / used the premium WordPress Multilingual Plugin from WPML

    Are there any advantages to buying this plugin over using the free Google Translator plugin?

    • WPBeginner Support

      WPML allows you to manually translate your own site in multiple languages. On the other hand, Google Translate is an machine translation service.

      Admin

  21. angelis

    Hello how can translate add top right or left corner thank you..

    • Alex

      Use these tags, for center, for left, or for right.
      Place one of those tags in front of the shortcode or PHP code. Then use a closing tag like this, , , or
      Place one of the closing tags at the end of your Shortcode or PHP code.

  22. Matteo Coné

    I have created a blog on “The Twenty Ten Theme. Blog at WordPress.com.” https://mc1a.wordpress.com/

    I watched the Video Tutorial, read “Adding Google Translate in WordPress” and I cannot find the word “Plugin” anywhere on my dashboard.

    The words “Plugins and Installed plugins” DO NOT appear anywhere on my dashboard.

    How do I add “plugins and installed plugins” on my dashboard.

    Can someone help please.

    Thanks
    Matteo

  23. Simon Andrew

    Having tried a few different methods to create multi-lingual sites this seems the best. Manage the translations and have them done properly, and only in the languages you need and its great. I don’t think it is particularly good if your site is in Googlish, so make sure you only add languages you have translations for and its all good

    Simon

  24. RomanMorenets

    Interesting – is therу a way to insert exact translate textarea boxes from Google Translator? For example – I have multilingual form for clients. And they have to fill it up in different languages, but if they don’t know one, then translation with google translate is acceplable. So, would be interesting to have google translate on site available for only form fields. Any idea?))

  25. WPBeginner Staff

    Yes you can simply add a class=”notranslate” attribute to the company name and Google will not translate it.

    For example:
    <h1 class="notranslate"&gtCompany Name</h1>

  26. Pierre Pascual

    Hello
    Google translation is find but I like to prevent the translation of my company name. Is this possible ? (using WordPress plugin)

  27. website4all.net

    I have to insert to each page ?. Is there is translate plugin in for all page, ie in header ?

  28. Hammad Rafique

    Is there any other plugin, which works just like google translate for chrome? I mean, it changes the site’s content according to country’s IP address? If I open my blog from France then its content should be in french?

  29. Krish Murali Eswar

    It would be useful, for all your posts, to include a set of demo screen shot pre- and post-installation of plugins that you cover. Demo screen shot of how the plugin works will make our lives lot easier to decide for/against the use of plugin.

  30. Ana

    when I choose English to translate everything works ok, but when I choose Spanish to return to the original page I added in below the names of the categories and texts not translate well.

    Help me , please

  31. Ron Klaren

    Ehm.. if it really is better then nothing, shouldn’t it be used on wpbeginner as well? :-D

    • Editorial Staff

      No because most of our users use Chrome browser which automatically loads Google Translate for them if their default language is something other than English.

      Admin

  32. Lee Johnson

    As a linguist I have to agree that Google Translate can complicate matters. I would suggest f you cannot have dedicated pages in chosen language(s) then use Google Translate but add a rider saying that Google Translate is only a program and not perfect.

  33. ros

    I just uninstalled the global translation plugin after reading write up on SEO’s issues – duplicated contents and so forth. SO this is nothing like that, right? Btw if I were to create my own translated page, is it wise to do it in subdomain ie www.(MyUrlAddress).com/English or is it better to do it on different domain. Thanks

    • Editorial Staff

      No this plugin has no impact on your SEO because it is only doing things on user side of things. If you were to create your own translated domain, then both subdomains or directory works fine.

      Admin

      • Rose

        Hi

        Thanks to all for replying. I will activate the tool then , better to have something than nothing :) and will work on the translations soon. Thanks

        p.s: yes, some translations to (my native language) do sound ugly, especially the categories and tags :)

  34. Bernard Loo

    Google translator is better than nothing, but it can be misleading. Besides most languages have different structures: verbs are not placed in the same order.

    • Editorial Staff

      Totally agreed Bernard. It is not perfect, but it is better than nothing :)

      Admin

    • Karsten

      I can not agree. Translation from English to German is not “better than nothing”. It’s just horrable. In most cases it’s not even possible to guess the meaning of an article.
      I can’t tell if it’s that worse in other languages too, but for EN DE it’s a No-Go.

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