Google Translate on WordPress in 2026: What Changed and What to Use Now

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For years, adding Google Translate to WordPress meant one of two things: install a free plugin, or paste Google’s widget script into your theme. Both relied on the same Google Website Translator widget, and Google ended support for it on October 1, 2026 (Google).

If you run WordPress, that change may already have reached your site without you noticing. This guide covers what happened on WordPress specifically, how to check what your site is running, and which replacement fits which kind of site. For the general story of the shutdown, see Google ended support for the Website Translator widget.

Key takeaways

• Google’s Website Translator widget lost support on October 1, 2026. Google Translate and the Cloud Translation API continue.
• The Google Language Translator plugin (100,000+ active installs) switched to the GTranslate widget in version 7.0.1.
• Its free tier is for non-commercial sites only and gives no SEO benefit.
• Business and WooCommerce sites need a paid plan or a plugin that creates real language URLs.
• ConveyThis gives WordPress sites language URLs, hreflang and editable translations, with a free plan that covers 10,000 words, commercial sites included.

What changed for WordPress sites?

Google’s announcement covered the embeddable widget, the “Select Language” dropdown. It did not affect Google Translate as a service or Google Cloud Translation. Google points site owners who still need automated translation to the Cloud Translation API, which is a developer product, not a plugin.

On WordPress the widget usually arrived in one of three ways:

1. The Google Language Translator plugin. This was the most common route, and it has now changed engines (more on that below).
2. A script pasted by hand. It might sit in header.php, a child theme, a “header and footer scripts” plugin, a custom HTML widget or Google Tag Manager.
3. A theme or page builder option. Some themes bundled a Google Translate dropdown as a feature.

Route 1 updated itself. Routes 2 and 3 are still loading unsupported Google code until someone removes it.

How do I check what my WordPress site is running?

Two minutes in your browser and your dashboard will tell you.

Step 1: check the page source. Open your homepage, view the source (Ctrl+U or Cmd+Option+U), and search for these strings:

Step 2: check your plugins. Go to Plugins → Installed Plugins and look for “Translate WordPress – Google Language Translator” and its version number. Version 7.0.1 or later uses the GTranslate widget.

Step 3: check the places scripts hide. If the source still shows Google’s element.js but no plugin explains it, look in your theme’s header file, any header and footer scripts plugin, custom HTML widgets and your Tag Manager container.

What happened to the Google Language Translator plugin?

The plugin’s version 7.0.1 changelog reads: “Replace the legacy Google Website Translator widget with the GTranslate website translation widget” (WordPress.org). The plugin now belongs to the GTranslate family, has 100,000+ active installations, and keeps existing settings under Settings → Google Language Translator.

The free GTranslate service comes with conditions. According to the listing, it is available for personal, educational, internal testing, nonprofit and governmental purposes. “Commercial or revenue-generating use requires an applicable paid subscription.” For stores, the listing adds: “Technical compatibility with WooCommerce does not remove this requirement.”

The listing is also direct about what the free version does not do:

• “Our free version doesn’t give any SEO advantage.”
• “With free version your website URL doesn’t change and the translations are not stored.”
• “In our free version we provide Phrase Based machine translations from Google Translate.”

So for a hobby blog, a school or a nonprofit, the updated plugin is a reasonable free drop-in. For a business site, keeping the plugin means paying for GTranslate (it offers a 15-day trial, per GTranslate) or moving to another translation plugin.

Running a business site on WordPress? ConveyThis translates your pages into real language URLs with hreflang, lets you edit every line, and works with WooCommerce. The free plan includes 10,000 words and 2,500 translated pageviews a month, and commercial sites can use it. Start free or see the WordPress plugin.

Can I still add Google Translate to WordPress?

Yes, but not the old free way. These are the realistic options in 2026:

If you’re weighing GTranslate against ConveyThis directly, we have a side-by-side on ConveyThis vs GTranslate. For a wider view of the WordPress market, see WordPress translation plugins compared.

Why does a dropdown not help WordPress SEO?

A browser-side dropdown swaps text on the page the visitor already opened. The URL stays the same, so search engines see one English page and nothing else. Google’s guidance is to give each language version its own URL and connect them with hreflang.

On WordPress, that means you want:

• Language URLs such as example.com/fr/pricing/ that Google can crawl and index.
• Hreflang tags that link the versions together. Our hreflang guide covers the details.
• Translated SEO fields. The titles and meta descriptions you set in Yoast SEO or Rank Math should be translated too, not only the body text.

The GTranslate listing says the same thing in its own words: the free version doesn’t change the URL and gives no SEO advantage. If international search traffic matters to you, the widget approach was never going to deliver it.

How do I switch a WordPress site to ConveyThis?

You don’t need to rebuild anything. The ConveyThis plugin works on the rendered page, so it also picks up text from your theme, page builder and WooCommerce.

1. Create a ConveyThis account and add your domain with your original and target languages.
2. Install the plugin. In WordPress, go to Plugins → Add New, search for “ConveyThis”, then install and activate it.
3. Paste your API key in the plugin settings and save.
4. Review the pages that sell. Machine translation gets you live. Then check your homepage, top landing pages, pricing, checkout and legal text in the visual editor, and add glossary rules for brand and product names.
5. Check SEO. Open a translated URL, confirm the hreflang tags in the source, and check that your Yoast or Rank Math titles appear translated.
6. Remove the old widget. Deactivate Google Language Translator, or delete the hand-pasted Google script, so visitors don’t see two language switchers.
7. Clear your caches. If you use a caching plugin or a CDN, purge it after the switch.

For a full walkthrough with screenshots, see how to translate a WordPress website. Running a store? Making WooCommerce multilingual covers product pages, cart and checkout.

What about WordPress’s built-in AI?

WordPress 7.0 added AI building blocks to core, and the WordPress.org AI plugin can translate blocks inside a single post. It replaces the original text in the editor rather than creating language versions, so it isn’t a substitute for a translation plugin. We tested it in WordPress now has AI built in. Can it translate your site?

FAQ

Does Google Translate still work on WordPress?

Google Translate itself still works. What ended on October 1, 2026 is support for Google’s embeddable Website Translator widget, the dropdown many WordPress plugins and themes relied on. Sites that still load it are running unsupported code.

What happened to the Google Language Translator plugin?

Version 7.0.1 replaced the legacy Google Website Translator widget with the GTranslate widget. Existing settings carry over, but the free service is now limited to personal, educational, nonprofit and governmental use. Commercial use requires a paid GTranslate subscription.

Can I use the free GTranslate widget on a WooCommerce store?

Not for free. The plugin listing says commercial or revenue-generating use requires a paid subscription, and that technical compatibility with WooCommerce does not remove this requirement.

Will a Google Translate dropdown help my WordPress SEO?

No. A browser-side dropdown does not create separate language URLs, so search engines have no translated pages to index. Google recommends a separate URL for each language version plus hreflang annotations.

How do I replace Google Translate on WordPress?

Find where the old widget is loaded, install a translation plugin such as ConveyThis, choose your languages, review key pages, check the language URLs and hreflang, then remove the old plugin or script.

The short version

If your WordPress site serves a personal, school or nonprofit audience, the updated Google Language Translator plugin will likely keep doing the job for free. If the site makes money, the free route is gone either way. At that point, pick the option that also gives you indexable language pages, because that’s where the international traffic comes from.