Translating your Shopify store with Google Translate might seem a solid option. It’s fast, free, and you can cover a lot of languages. But there are two main downsides:
- While Google Translate can handle basic text, it doesn’t always capture the nuance and tone that’s critical for your brand
- It’s free to use, but it’s not always accurate
This can lead to awkward translations that confuse your customers or even cost you sales.
But is it still worth a try? Let’s take a closer look.
🧠 Actionable insights
In this article, we’ll break down how Google Translate works, where it might fall short for your Shopify store, and other options you have if you want to make your ecommerce website available in multiple languages.
Why using Google Translate for Shopify might not be enough
How accurate is Google Translate, really?
The accuracy of Google Translate depends on how much data is available for the target language. For instance, translating from English to Spanish has a very high accuracy rate — around 94%. Here’s why.
Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, with over 500 million speakers. This means there’s a vast amount of bilingual data (e.g., texts, websites) available for training Google Translate’s models.
Additionally, Spanish has a large community of users who suggest corrections and improvements. This helps to refine the accuracy of translations over time.
The accuracy percentage varies depending on the language. But even if the translations are accurate, you’re still missing out on the opportunity to use the right words that will reflect your brand’s tone of voice.
With luck, the information will get passed on from one language to another, but how effective will it be? And how will it impact the perception foreign customers have about your store? Will it hinder your ecommerce growth?
📝Key takeaway
A poorly translated website can harm your credibility. If customers can’t understand your product descriptions, or if something feels off, they may feel less confident about making a purchase. There are so many scam ecommerce stores out there. It takes just one wrong impression for customers to navigate away.
Example of translating Shopify with Google Translate
Let’s say your Shopify store sells organic skincare products, and now you want to expand into Germany. With Google Translate, you can automatically translate product descriptions.
Your “Gentle Face Cleanser” will automatically be translated into “Sanfter Gesichtsreiniger.” In this example, the translation of the type of product is quick.
But Google Translate may not fully capture your brand’s tone or accurately translate more specific product details. It’s likely you’ll need to manually tweak the translations to ensure they sound polished and professional for your German audience.
📚Further reading
Are you planning to expand to new markets and looking for useful resources? Check out our ultimate guide to cross-border ecommerce to learn everything from how much it costs to set up your international store, to why localization matters for growth.
How Google Translate works for Shopify
Google Translate uses the Google Cloud Translation API. It’s an advanced AI technology that quickly converts text into different languages. It aims to provide translations that are natural and contextually accurate for users across the globe.
When you use Google Translate for your Shopify store, you can instantly translate product descriptions and different types of content on your website. However, like we said, it’s not flawless, especially when it comes to more complex content.
There are two main ways you can use Google Translate for Shopify:
- Manual embedding the Google Translate’s widget directly into your Shopify store
- Using Shopify’s Translate & Adapt app
After we explain the pros and cons of each approach, we’ll also show you alternative ways you can easily translate your Shopify store.
Embedding the Shopify Google Translate widget
You can embed Google Translate’s widget directly into your Shopify store. When people visit your ecommerce, the website will provide a dropdown where they can choose their preferred language, or it will suggest translating the page in a certain language.
Once they select their preference, the entire page will get translated on the fly. We’ll see in a bit the pros and cons of this.
To embed Google Translate’s widget on your Shopify store, follow these steps:
- Go to the Google Translate website
- Click “Start free” and follow the set-up wizard
- Google will provide you with a custom HTML code snippet
- Copy the code and paste it into your Shopify store’s theme. Go to Online Store > Themes > Actions > Edit Code, then paste the snippet in the appropriate location (make sure to follow instructions)
Pros and cons of Shopify Google Translate widget
Let’s take a quick look at the pros and cons of Shopify Google Translate widget.
Pros:
- It’s easy to add and offers instant translations for site visitors
- It’s free to use, which is ideal for ecommerce businesses on a budget
- It covers over 100 languages, helping you reach a global audience without heavy investment
Cons:
- Translations may lack accuracy, especially when it comes to complex product descriptions, brand messaging, or industry-specific terms
- Translations can feel a bit “robotic” or awkward
- Translations are displayed in real-time to the user, which means you don’t have control over quality
❗Important note
When using Google Translate’s widget on your Shopify store, the content is translated on the fly. This means the original content stays in its source language on your website, and translations are displayed to users in real-time.
The translated text doesn’t exist as separate content on your website, and it won’t be indexed by search engines in its translated form. This means you won’t be able to invest in multilingual SEO.
Using Shopify’s Translate & Adapt app
You’re probably wondering why we listed Shopify’s Translate & Adapt app while discussing how to use Google Translate to make your ecommerce multilingual. Well, there’s a good reason for that.
Take a quick look at Shopify’s Help Center, and you’ll discover something interesting:
Shopify’s Translate & Adapt app integrates with the Google Cloud Translation API for its automatic translations! This helps Shopify merchants to quickly translate their ecommerce into multiple languages.
However, the app doesn’t just rely on automation. It also allows you to manually refine translations, which gives you control over the final version of translations.
Since Shopify’s Translate & Adapt app is native, you can find it within your admin panel. Any changes made are automatically reflected across all languages.
To activate the app, follow these steps:
- From your Shopify admin, go to “Apps”
- Click “Translate & Adapt”
- Select the language that you want to translate
- Click “Auto-translate”
- Click “Translate”
Pros and cons of using Shopify’s native translation app
Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of the native translation app, especially when compared to the Shopify Google Translate app widget.
Pros:
- You can automate translations, but it also gives you the ability to manually edit them later on
- Supports SEO best practices by translating titles, descriptions, and other important metadata for search engines
- Lets you translate your ecommerce into multiple languages and adapt content based on location
Cons:
- While you can edit translations, it’s more basic compared to professional localization tools
- Policies cannot be automatically translated (there is a disclaimer that indicates potential translation inaccuracies), nor can collection filters, forms, and tags
- Language support is limited (10+ languages) and you can automatically translate only 2 languages
So, if using Google Translate is off the table, what alternatives are there?
Alternatives to using Google Translate for Shopify
If you’re looking for more control and accuracy in translating your Shopify website, there are many alternatives to Google Translate. These can help you manage content across languages with ease, and reach customers around the globe.
Most of the third-party Shopify translation apps offer automated translations, but they are not all built the same. This is why it’s important to check user reviews and understand what you’re getting — especially if it’s a paid tool.
Some are based on the same machine translation principles like Google Translate, while others use more sophisticated technologies to give you accurate translations that are human-like.
That’s exactly what Lokalise Flow does.
Try Lokalise Flow — it’s light years ahead of Google Translate
Lokalise Flow is a no-code Shopify translation app that compares translations from multiple AI engines, like OpenAI GPT-4, Google, DeepL, to give you the most accurate translations. It’s currently the best app, offering such broad capabilities.
While other tools rely on basic machine translation, Flow translates with context. The app will analyze your Shopify website content, the style guide, and glossary you upload, and then select the most accurate translation.
Once translations are ready, Lokalise Flow loads them immediately on your store, so there’s no impact on loading speed, measured by Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), which can negatively impact SEO and engagement rates.
💪 What about multilingual SEO?
Because of the way content is translated with Flow, you’ll organically invest in multilingual SEO. Here’s why:
Flow translates Shopify content in the source code. This means translated text appears as separate content on your website.
• Flow creates one URL per language, indexed by search engines in its translated form to boost your search results.
• Hreflag tags are added instantly to pages translated with Flow. Hreflang is an HTML attribute used to specify a page’s language and target region.
It’s a no-brainer, really. With Lokalise Flow, you need zero technical experience, it takes less than 5 minutes to set up, and it’s free for the first 6 months.
Sign up for the Beta program here and launch a multilingual store in minutes.
