Discover the pros and cons of using Google Translate for websites. Learn about its benefits, limitations, and why a Translation Management System (TMS) may be the better solution for accurate and professional translations. Explore the evolution of Google Translate and its impact on global communication.
If you’ve ever used Google Translate to decode a menu or figure out a foreign email, you know it’s fast, free, and usually good enough. So, it’s safe to assume it could work just as well for your SaaS website, right?
Not exactly. Yes, Google Translate can handle dozens of languages in seconds. But in 2025, relying solely on Google Translate can cost your business more than just incorrect phrasing - it will cost you trust, loss of credibility, and even legal problems.
Let’s break down what Google Translate gets right, where it misses the mark, and why your website deserves more than “good enough.”
For many years, Google Translate wasn’t known for its accuracy. A quick search will show you plenty of viral #GoogleTranslateFails like these.
Despite some inaccuracies, AI translation has taken huge strides recently. A study showed that Google Translate's accuracy improved about 34% between 2011 and 2019.
In 2025, researchers found that Google Translate translated emergency documents at a hospital, resulting in an error rate of only 5%, which is promising.
However, the outlook on Google Translate isn’t entirely optimistic. The Pew Research Center says Google Translate may provide a serviceable substitute for professional translation, but “only for some languages and some contexts.”
Other researchers have drawn more conservative conclusions after observing AI making critical errors in document translation in language pairs like Russian and English. The Journal of Medical AI shared, “[AI] remains unreliable for use without human oversight.”
Regarding accuracy, some languages perform better than others in AI tools like Google Translate. Many low-resource languages like Burmese lack a sufficient quantity and quality of digital data when it comes to accurately training the AI.
In a developer’s test of AI translation tools, GitHub user Ogkalu2 found that AI also struggles with languages far apart on the language family tree, like English and Chinese.
As you can see from the test below, the AI translations are technically accurate. But Google Translate struggles with nuance, word choice, and idioms, resulting in an awkward, clunky English text.
Machine translation made its online debut in 1997 with Babel Fish, a pioneering tool that lets users quickly translate phrases into languages like English, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish.
In the early 2000s, Google entered the scene by licensing the same translation engine that Yahoo and other competitors used. But the technology was still clunky—famously producing garbled phrases like one Korean-to-English example shared by Google co-founder Sergey Brin:
“The sliced raw fish shoes it wishes. Google green onion thing!”
Determined to improve, Google launched its product, Google Translate, in 2006. Initially powered by statistical machine translation (SMT), the service relied on pattern recognition rather than accurate understanding.
That changed in 2016, when Google started using neural machine translation (NMT). Modeled on the human brain, NMT allowed Google Translate to grasp meaning more accurately and generate more natural language.
Since then, the tool has grown exponentially in both accuracy and reach. It now supports over 240 languages as of 2025 and is embedded into Google’s ecosystem—from Chrome and Search to Pixel earbuds, which powers real-time conversation translation.
As of 2025, Google Translate supports 240+ languages.
Google Translate is a good starting point if you need a quick and free way to translate a website from English into new languages. But if you're building a global brand and your reputation is essential to you, using Google Translate on your public website may lead to errors and misinterpretations, and ultimately hurt your brand.
Evolving Technology
Neural machine translation technology is constantly evolving. Like the human brain, it builds knowledge to get smarter over time. As Google's technology improves, machine translations will improve in quality.
Translation Speed
Google Translate can translate about 2000 characters per second. This means you could translate an entire novel in less than two minutes.
Accessibility and Ease of Use
Despite accuracy issues, Google Translate is a fast and simple way to translate text and websites. Google's translation tools integrate with web browsers and mobile devices, making it accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
Helpful Translation Drafting Tool
Machine translation will never outperform human translators, but it can still be a helpful tool. Many professional translators use machine translation to do the first translation draft. The machine-generated draft is then post-edited by a skilled human translator. This can save time and lower translation costs.
Benefits for Communication
For content or communications that aren’t customer-facing, Google Translate can be indispensable for delivering the basic meaning of your words to other people who speak different languages.
If you're building a global brand and your reputation is important to you, using Google Translate on your public website is risky.
Big Mistakes for Your Brand
Even with recent improvements, Google Translate is notorious for making mistakes in translation. It tends to miss nuances and struggle with long sentences, missing key context, and adding unnecessary wording. These mistakes can be damaging to your brand.
Formatting Problems
Text and number formatting is also tricky for Google Translate. Formatting problems on essential pages like your brand's pricing and checkout pages could hurt your business.
Trouble with Context and Cultural Nuance
Unlike a skilled translator, machine translation can't always understand the context of a language. Does Google Translate know you're not talking about fruit if you refer to Apple? Not necessarily. Google Translate also struggles with unique cultural nuances like traditions, gestures, local places, etc.
Lack of Industry-Specific Knowledge
AI doesn't understand industry terminology as well as humans do. Google Translate still isn't good enough for essential business, legal, healthcare, and safety websites. The Verge reported significant errors in Google Translate's interpretation of medical documents. They found life-threatening mistakes. In one example, Google Translate turned “You can take over-the-counter ibuprofen as needed for pain” into Armenian as something completely different: “You may take anti-tank missile as much as you need for pain.”
Possible Legal Repercussions of Mistranslations
Good translations are critical as more countries regulate the internet with privacy and data security laws. For example, if you publish a bad translation of your online policies, you might be violating the law. For example, researchers examined how a small commercial airline used Google Translate for its Terms and Conditions webpage. Unfortunately, mistranslations led to significant financial and legal trouble for the business.
Stiff Competition
While Google Translate remains the go-to tool for quick, free translations, it’s facing stiff competition in 2025. Advanced language models like ChatGPT (GPT-4o) began outperforming Google in nuanced translation tasks, especially in understanding idioms, slang, or cultural context. In a side-by-side test, ChatGPT produced more natural, accurate results than Google Translate in several common languages.
Google Translate has transformed how we communicate across the globe. It’s fast, free, and widely accessible. Its shift to neural machine translation has improved performance, especially for common language pairs and straightforward content.
But it still struggles with complex grammar, idioms, cultural context, and low-resource languages. While Google Translate is helpful for everyday use, it’s unsuitable for professional content. For accurate, culturally relevant translations—especially in business, marketing, legal, or medical contexts—a Translation Management System (TMS) is the intelligent choice.
If you still only use Google Translate to translate your website, you're not alone. But you get what you pay for. Free AI tools and Chrome extensions can’t deliver brand-safe, customer-ready content.
“[AI] remains unreliable for use without human oversight.”
-Journal of Medical AI
Instead, we recommend using a TMS like Localize, which combines human expertise with machine translation to deliver fast, accurate results. Localize’s intuitive platform makes launching, managing, and updating multilingual websites and apps easy. Built-in AI tools enhance translation speed and consistency while giving you complete control over tone, accuracy, and cultural fit.
A free translation tool might seem convenient, but your global brand deserves more. Ready to upgrade your website translations? Let’s talk.
Experienced content pro with years in SaaS and tech. I blend writing, editing, knowledge management, and content strategy to make tough technical topics easier.
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