We frequently get asked if the WordPress Multilingual Plugin offers built-in support for machine-translated content (example: Google Translate).
The answer? No.
And you wouldn’t want it to. The WordPress Multilingual Plugin lets human editors provide translated content for your website. This benefits your website in several ways:
- Poorly translated content is unprofessional.
We’ve all been to sites that have been clearly translated by a machine. At worst, such sites bring to mind Nigerian Princess scams… At best, we assume the company isn’t really set up to do legitimate business in our language. In short: these sites appear embarrassingly unprofessional.
- Google doesn’t like it when you try to pass off machine-translated content as human-translated content.
A big reason why you probably want to offer your site content in multiple languages is to expand your marketing reach to those searching in other languages. That means you need to appease the Google Gods. Google doesn’t like machine-translated content, unless you are offering such translations via their own Google Translate widget and the fact that the translation is machine-translated is transparent to all. Google will not reward you for machine-translated content, and Google always seems to know.
So, give up the dream of a shortcut. Get the WordPress MultiLingual Plugin. Google and your customers will thank you.