Using Google Translate on Your Website is Bad for SEO - Martindale-Avvo

Using Google Translate on Your Website is Bad for SEO

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Translating your website is a great way to reach clients with limited English proficiency. The US Census Bureau estimates that 4.4% of households in the United States speak only limited English. Almost 25% of those households speak an Asian or Pacific Island language, and close to 22% speak Spanish.   

As an attorney, you have the responsibility to provide the same quality of service to all clients, regardless of a person’s native language. But if you want community members with limited English proficiency to be able to access your services, you have to make sure they can read your content.

And so you decide to translate parts of your site. It’s a good thought, but keep in mind that how you translate matters – and that Google Translate is not the way to go. 

The Problem with Google Translate

It would be easy for your law practice to auto-translate its website into a second or third language. Clients could see the practice’s services and the attorneys could hire interpreters if necessary. 

But there’s a hole in that plan, and it has to do with how search engines view automatically translated content.

Automatically translated text = auto-generated content

Google constantly refines its algorithms so that relevant, high-quality content will appear on a user’s results page. To achieve that goal, Google seeks out content that appears to be generated by a computer program.   

According to Google, automatically generated content includes “text translated by an automated tool without human review or curation before publishing.” Content that goes through Google Translate fits that definition perfectly.

The penalties

John Mueller, a webmaster trends analyst from Google, posted on one auto-translated site that this kind of content “should be blocked from crawling/indexing.”

In case you’re not familiar with Google’s lingo, “crawling” is how the search engines’ bots find new and updated pages. Indexing is what happens when Google adds the information about those sites to its list of all active and legitimate websites.

If your site is auto-translated, Google might ignore the translated content altogether. So when a Spanish speaker searches for your site, he or she might not see it.  Knowing this, you can see clearly why auto-translation is a poor SEO strategy.

Translating Responsibly

You might be considering adjusting the auto-translated content enough that Google will recognize the “human review or curation.” That’s a fine solution, provided that you can follow through and serve the client when he or she does get to you. 

Consider whether you’re able to offer human interpretation and translation services to your clients with limited English. If you only have the resources for automatic translation, you’ll serve those clients better by referring them to an attorney who is more proficient in their native languages. You’ll be helping a colleague, perhaps establishing a referral relationship, and ensuring that a client in need gets the best service possible.   
    
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