Google announced that they are now translating search results into eight additional languages, providing publishers with a chance to increase global traffic. The updated documentation indicates that Google has expanded its translated results feature to include these new languages. This enhancement broadens the reach of publishers by automatically translating content into a site visitor’s native language, promoting a more global audience.

Google Translated Results

Translated Results is a Google Search feature that automatically translates the title link and meta description into a user’slocal language, making websites published in one language accessible to searchers in another language. When a searcher clicks on a translated result link, the entire web page will also be automatically translated.

This feature benefits publishers by making their websites available to a larger audience, increasing their global reach.

Search Feature Available in More Languages

Google’s documentation for this feature has been updated to reflect that it is now available in eight additional languages. Users who speak the following languages will now have automatic access to a broader range of websites:

• Arabic
• Gujarati
• Korean
• Persian
• Thai
• Turkish
• Urdu
• Vietnamese

Why Did It Take So Long?

It seems odd that Google didn’t already translate results into major languages like Turkish, Arabic, or Korean. To understand why it might have taken so long for Google to do this in the Korean language, I asked international SEO expert Christopher Shin (LinkedIn profile).

Christopher shared:

“Google was always facing difficulties in the South Korean market as a search engine, mainly due to competition from Naver and Kakao, formerly known as Daum.

The paradigm shift to Google began when more students who studied abroad in countries where Google is the dominant search engine returned to South Korea. These returning students, travelers, and others started to realize the strengths and weaknesses of local search portals and the capabilities they provided. Additionally, major South Korean businesses like Samsung and Hyundai began shifting their marketing and sales efforts to global markets, making Google an increasingly important tool domestically.

While Naver remains the dominant search portal, it is more commonly used for shopping, reviews, and similar purposes rather than retrieving answers to specific queries.

I believe that market prioritization may be a significant reason for the delayed introduction of Translated Google Search Results. With a population of roughly 52 million, South Korea is smaller and continues to decline due to low birth rates.

Another major factor is the complexity of the Korean language, which makes it challenging to develop a translation tool that accurately replicates English content. Although modern Korean uses Hangeul, the country also uses Hanja, which are words of Chinese origin. My team used to rely on Google Translate until they found that Naver’s Papago provided better translations. With the introduction of ChatGPT, Google’s competitiveness in this area has been limited.”

Takeaway

It’s no exaggeration to say that 2024 has been a tough year for publishers. With the introduction of AI Overviews, the 2024 Core Algorithm Update, and missing image thumbnails on recipe blogger sites, the news from Google hasn’t been favorable. However, this announcement is different, as it creates an opportunity for publisher content to be shown in more languages than ever before.

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