Google has just added a new website translator gadget that will automatically suggest a user to translate your website content into their preferred language (based on their browsers’ language settings). It will add a nice overlay on the top asking whether they want Google to translate the post they are viewing. What you need to do is simply add the Google Translator widget code into your template file.
Adding the widget code is easy. Simply go to Google Translate page and copy paste the code into your website HTML page. If you want to use it on a WordPress blog (like this one), then the best is to add it on the Footer, just before the closing of the BODY tag.
To test whether it’s working or not, try changing the Language settings on your browser and browse your page.
For example, I tried adding a German as my primary language (not that I understand German, but for testing-sake) on Firefox – Options – Contents:
I then tried browsing one of my recent post, the “Wanna be a great blogger? Be an ant!” to test it out and I got this notification on the screen:
Clicked on the Translate button on the far right (cropped on the screenshot) and voila! I got Google Translate translating the post into German:
I know now that “Ant” is “Ameise” in German (based on the title that got changed by Google Translate) 
(I hope my guess is correct)
Pretty cool, eh? This will certainly help your site/blog to have a larger audience and hopefully international subscribers! This will not, unfortunately, bring more international search engine visitors because your site will still be indexed in English by Google. You can try a plug-in called Global Translator but I found out that it breaks ethical search engines policies so it’s a risk that you might or might not want to take.
For some reason, I tried testing this on Google Chrome (Build 4.0.213.1) but nothing happened (I didn’t see the Google Translator overlay popping up on the top) even though I’ve changed the Language settings completely:
Perhaps I should have tried it on the official Google Chrome release..
So yeah, the catch? Well your blog/site needs to do another extra JavaScript call because you added the code to be loaded on every single page/post that you have. Is it worth it? Depends. If your site is already “heavy” then you might want to reconsider. I’m not sure whether this feature will be used by my international visitors on this blog, but I guess it’s not easy to find out. I definitely loved Google Translator when it translated an early gadget review in German to English so I could understand what the review was saying 
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the info, it seems good new kind of google translate widget. I already try sidebar google translator widget in my blogspot.com blog, and it is working fine until now even the translate result seems funny sometimes.
.-= Dana@Online Knowledge´s last blog ..Install Google XML Sitemaps WordPress Plugin =-.
Well it’s automated so you’ll never get a 100% correct translation. But still, it’s good enough to be understood
Google translator will help you in translating whatever dialect you want to translate. It is really helpful if you don’t know certain language.
Sounds nice. So far I was using a plugin called Global Translator but I am no more using it. It was nice but I wanted to try something else.
Thanks for info.
.-= Agent 001´s last blog ..We have the Winners for My Small Contest =-.
Yeah I did too like I mentioned on the post. Glad that you uninstalled it, I don’t think that plug-in is good for the long run
That sounds pretty sweet. Shame that the translation will still be a literal one, but there’s not a lot that can be done about that really.
Thanks for the info.
.-= Ben´s last blog ..The Best Yahoo Answer Response Ever =-.
Did you guys really get good results with this tool? Because the last time that I tried it, the translations were not good at all…
- Johnny
.-= Johnny A´s last blog ..Automated Income Streams… Possible Or Impossible? =-.
Well it’s good enough so that your readers can understand at least 70% of what you are trying to say, I guess
Now, this is something i will really try.
thanks,
-Nhoel of http://keywordspeak.com
.-= Nhoel´s last blog ..Foods You Can Eat While You’re On Your PC =-.
Great post mike.
This will definitely help our blog to reach to non English audience.
It will also help us learn some of the foreign language words
.-= Nihar´s last blog ..Champions League Twenty20 2009 – Cricket Schedule – Match Timings – Channels Telecasting =-.
What are the concerns with Global Translator? We’re considering using this plugin. It sounds like there are concerns about it, but no specifics. The article says “it breaks ethical search engines policies so it’s a risk that you might or might not want to take.”
What does this mean?
thanks
Hi Tony, next to that statement I made is a link to my post about the Global Translator plug-in. If you still miss it, click this instead to read my other post about Global Translator issues
I have added this translator as widget and thought it might now work, since your tip is different, but just for chance I tried and tested this one by changing my browser language and Viola! It works
. Thanks for this useful tip Michael.
.-= Harsh Agrawal´s last blog ..How To Promote Thesis Affiliate Program =-.
I like google translation. as someone said it is not 100% but great for manes terms.
Adding it soon, this is what I needed, thank you.
Is there a language translator plugin like globar translator that dont give seo errors?
The only ones that don’t break SEO or Google TOS, are the manual translators plug-in (there are a few out there). So basically your visitors need to visit your main page and then click on the button to translate instead of being done automatically
actually google machine translation is not perfect. there are lots of funny examples. Just see how it translates into Russian the famous city “Moscow”!!! I think if you are serious about your blog or web-site, you should use professional translation services.
hello , I need it for joomla 1.5 .