How to Add Google Translate to Your Website

Honestly, you mostly cannot anymore. Google stopped offering its Website Translator widget to new sites in December 2019, reopened it in 2020 only for non-commercial COVID-19 response sites, and site-builder publishers report support ends on October 1, 2026. Visitors can still translate any page with Chrome, Edge or Safari's built-in translation.

Your realistic options in October 2026
Option	Cost	Search engines see translations?
Old Google widget snippet	Free, unsupported	No
Rely on browser translation	Free	No
Paid translation plugin or proxy	Monthly fee	Often yes, with separate URLs
Hand-built language versions	Your time or a translator	Yes

Updated October 28, 2026

Search volume for 'google translate widget' is still high because old tutorials keep circulating. They point to a snippet (translate.google.com/translate_a/element.js) that Google closed to new commercial sites years ago. This guide explains the status and what to do instead on each platform.

Add translation on We.Inc, WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or plain HTML

We.Inc

Decide which pages need a second language; We.Inc has no automatic multi-language feature.
In the AI chat, ask for translated copies of those pages, for example 'create a Spanish version of the home and services pages at /es/'.
Ask the AI to add a small language link in the header that switches between versions.
Have a fluent speaker read the new pages, then publish.

We.Inc does not add the Google widget as an add-on. Building translated pages through the AI chat uses credits on a paid plan.

WordPress

Go to Plugins > Add Plugin and search for a translation plugin.
Compare whether it creates separate translated URLs (good for search) or only translates in the browser.
Install, choose your languages and add its language switcher to the menu.
Review machine translations before publishing them.

Most translation plugins charge for automatic translation beyond a small free allowance. Plugin installs on WordPress.com require one of its paid plans.

Wix

Skip the Google snippet; Wix has its own multilingual feature.
Follow Wix's multilingual help pages to add languages and translate each page.
Show the language menu in your header so visitors can switch.

We did not re-check Wix's multilingual menus or translation limits for this guide; follow Wix's own help pages for the current steps.

Squarespace

Squarespace has no built-in Google Translate option.
For a few pages, duplicate them, translate the text and link them from a language item in the navigation.
For a whole site, a third-party translation service added through Code Injection is the usual route.

Only Core, Plus and Advanced sites get Code Injection.

Plain HTML

Create a folder per language, such as /fr/, with translated copies of each page.
Set <html lang="fr"> on each French page.
Add hreflang link tags in every version pointing to all versions.
Link the versions with a visible switcher in the header.

Sources

Checked October 28, 2026: the translation pages we read.

Google Search Central blog, 'Google Translate's Website Translator - available for non-commercial use' (May 2020): https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2020/05/google-translates-website-translator
WP Hive report of the October 1, 2026 end of support (third-party; no live Google page found): https://wphive.com/news/google-to-retire-website-translator-widget/
Squarespace code injection plans for third-party translation scripts: https://support.squarespace.com/hc/en-us/articles/205815908-Using-code-injection

Why visitors usually do not need a widget

Chrome, Edge and Safari detect a page in a language the visitor does not read and offer to translate it. That covers casual visitors at no cost and with no code on your site.

A widget only adds value when you want to promise a language explicitly. In that case, a real translated page does the job better and can also rank.

How it works

Decide whether you need visitors to understand the page, or need to rank in another language.
For understanding only, do nothing: modern browsers offer translation automatically.
For ranking, publish real translated pages at their own URLs.
Add a simple language switcher linking those versions.

Tips

Machine translation in the browser does not create pages Google can index in that language, so it brings no search traffic.
If you do publish translations, link the versions with hreflang tags so Google shows the right one; our multilingual website guide covers this.
Have a fluent speaker check headings, buttons and prices. Machine errors there cost the most trust.
Keep a widget-free fallback: a short 'This site is in English' note with a contact address helps more than a broken dropdown.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Google Translate website widget discontinued?

For new sign-ups, yes since December 2019. Google's May 2020 Search Central post reopened it only for government, non-profit and non-commercial sites focused on COVID-19. WordPress publications report that Google set October 1, 2026 as the end of support; we could not find that date on a live Google page, so treat it as reported.

Does the old snippet still work on my site?

It may still load on sites that installed it years ago, but it is unsupported and could stop at any time. Do not build anything important on it.

What does Google recommend instead?

For sites that need translation, Google's 2020 post points to the Cloud Translation API, which is a paid developer service you would wire into your own build process.

Does Google penalise machine-translated pages?

Google's spam policies cover automatically generated content made to manipulate rankings. Machine translation reviewed by a person to be genuinely useful is a different matter, but unreviewed bulk translation is risky.

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