Translating your website with AI: what to review before you publish

AI translates a whole website in minutes, and the result is usually good as a first version, not as a final one. What fails most is not the everyday sentences but prices, legal terms, proper names, buttons, and words that change meaning between variants of the same language. Translate with AI, but get someone who knows the language to read what the customer sees.

What to review first

Part of the site The risk Who should read it
Buying pages, prices, plans and conditions A mistake becomes a promise or a dispute Someone trusted who knows the product and the language.
Terms, privacy and legal notices A loose translation can change the legal meaning Whoever wrote the original, and ideally a lawyer.
Menus, buttons and error messages Left untranslated or overflowing their space Whoever tests the site in the new language, end to end.
Dates, currencies and numbers Different formats (comma and point, order of day and month) Check on screen, not in the text.
Product and brand names The AI translates what should stay as it is Give it a list of terms not to translate.

How to translate well, step by step

1 Name the variant. European and Brazilian Portuguese differ in words and in forms of address, and the same goes for other languages with several varieties. Ask for the variant your audience uses, and check that it keeps it throughout.
2 Translate in parts (one page at a time) and give a glossary: the terms that must always stay the same.
3 Ask for a back-translation of one section (from the result back to the original language). If the meaning changed, the problem shows up there.
4 Have a person review the pages that matter. The rest can be reviewed later, in order of visits.
5 Give each language its own address and tell Google they are versions of the same page. See a site in several languages or countries: hreflang.

What tends to be left untranslated

Almost always, what is forgotten is whatever is not in the body of the page: the automatic e-mails the site sends, form error messages, the confirmation page after a purchase, the title and description that show on Google, and the alt text of images. Walk through the site as a customer in the new language, from first click to last, and note every sentence that stayed in the old one.

Beware of “translate this page” buttons that work in the visitor’s browser. The translation appears only for whoever asks for it; for Google the page still exists only in the original language. If you want to be found in another language, you need translated pages with their own address.
If the site is on WordPress, look for a multilingual plugin that stores translations as real pages, and use AI for the first draft of each. See building a WordPress site with AI help.

Need help with the technical setup of a multilingual site? Describe what you have.

Open a support ticket

SEE ALSO

Site in several languages or countries: hreflang and avoiding duplicate versions

Building a WordPress site with AI help: what works and what does not

AI-written content and Google: what to watch

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