How to Translate a Website — Native, Hreflang-Ready, Done For You
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There are three legitimate ways to translate a website in 2026: machine translation, hybrid AI + human review, and full human translation. Each forces a different trade-off between cost, quality, and SEO performance. This page walks through each path, the SEO traps to avoid, and the done-for-you alternative Eldris built specifically for ecommerce and Amazon FBA sellers entering Europe.
Eldris Website (website.eldris.ai) is the managed translation service for brands that need a translated storefront live in 4–6 weeks, with hreflang, GDPR, and ongoing sync handled. Three tiers — Starter from £497 activation + £99/month, Growth £997 + £149/month, Scale £1,997 + £249/month. Each additional language at 15% sibling-clone discount.
What Are the Three Ways to Translate a Website?
Quick Answer: What Are the Three Ways to Translate a Website?
Every commercial website translation project in 2026 falls into one of three approaches:
- Machine translation (Google Translate, DeepL, GPT) — fastest and cheapest, free to $0.02 per word. Reaches roughly 85% quality on simple copy and 40% on persuasive marketing language. Google explicitly penalises machine-translated commercial pages in its quality guidelines; auto-translated pages typically lose 31% of rankings within 90 days of launch per Search Console data we audited across 2,000 ecommerce sites.
- Hybrid (AI draft + native human review) — the modern professional standard. Translation cost lands in the £0.08–£0.18 per word range. SEO performance matches native human translation provided the reviewer is a native speaker of the target language with subject-matter knowledge.
- Full human translation — agency-led, $0.15–$0.22 per word on average from established LSPs (Smartling, Lionbridge, TransPerfect). Highest fidelity for regulatory, legal, and high-conversion landing pages. Slowest turnaround.
For ecommerce above ~$50,000 monthly revenue, the hybrid approach wins on ROI. For ecommerce below that, machine plus a focused human pass on conversion-critical pages (homepage, top 20 products, checkout, returns policy) is the right trade-off.
How Much Does It Cost to Translate a Website?
Eldris Website is priced in three tiers. Activation is one-time and covers the full migration plus four EU languages live on day one. Monthly billing starts the day your site goes live and covers managed hosting, SSL, GDPR cookie banner, hreflang maintenance, continuous translation sync, weekly performance reporting and support. There is no per-word billing and no per-page surprises.
Starter
Growth
Scale
Each additional language is a 15% sibling-clone discount on both activation and monthly — because the migration data layer is reused. A Growth client launching the standard German + French + Italian + Spanish bundle pays £997 + £847 + £847 + £847 = £3,538 activation total, and £149 + £127 + £127 + £127 = £530 per month total across the four sites.
Sites bigger than 25 pages or 200 blog posts get a bespoke quote against published per-asset rates: £35 per additional page, £8 per additional blog post, £15 per additional product, applied to activation only. The monthly stays at the Scale rate of £249 unless your asset count exceeds 100 pages or 250 products. Every activation carries a 14-day money-back guarantee if the agreed scope is not delivered on time.
Full pricing tables (including EUR and USD) at website.eldris.ai/website-translation-pricing. Send your URL and we return a fixed activation plus monthly quote within 24 hours — no discovery call required.
Can Google Translate Translate My Website? Is It Enough?
Yes, you can install the Google Translate widget on a website. No, it is not enough for a serious ecommerce or commercial site. Three problems are well documented in the SEO community and reproducible:
- Duplicate content signals. Google Translate output is not unique content. It generates near-identical phrases for similar source pages across thousands of sites that use the widget. Google's algorithms cluster these and rank the highest-authority version, which is rarely yours.
- No hreflang. The widget injects translations via JavaScript at runtime. There are no separate URLs per language and no hreflang tags. Google cannot index your translated pages as distinct ranking targets.
- Persuasive copy degrades. Google Translate hits ~85% quality on neutral informational text and drops to ~40% on marketing copy with idiom, emotion, or industry vocabulary. Conversion rates on machine-translated product pages run 60–75% below native-language rates in our 2,000-site audit.
DeepL is materially better than Google on European nuance (German, French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch). But the same hreflang and duplicate-content problems apply if you embed it as a widget. For SEO performance, translations must be stored as static or server-rendered pages with proper URL structure and hreflang annotations — which is what Eldris ships by default.
Do I Need Different Domains for Translated Websites?
No — and choosing wrong adds 12–18 months to ranking velocity. The three architectures in 2026 are:
- Subfolders (example.com/de/, example.com/fr/) — recommended for most cases. Inherits domain authority, easiest to maintain, simplest hreflang setup.
- Subdomains (de.example.com, fr.example.com) — only useful if you need to host the translation on a different CMS or with a different team. Inherits less authority than subfolders.
- Separate ccTLDs (example.de, example.fr) — only justified when you need to physically operate distinct legal entities per country (financial services, regulated markets). Each ccTLD starts at zero domain authority.
Subfolders win for ecommerce 9 times out of 10. Eldris Website deploys subfolders by default, generates the complete hreflang tag set across your entire URL inventory, and submits the international sitemap to Google Search Console as part of the activation.
What Does Eldris Website Actually Include?
The Eldris Website service is sold as a managed translation project, not a SaaS subscription. Every tier ships the same baseline — Starter is not a stripped-down compromise, it is the same migration, hreflang, native human review and managed hosting as Scale, just for smaller sites.
- Native human review on every page — every translated page is reviewed by a native speaker living in the target market with subject-matter knowledge of your industry. This is included on Starter — there is no upsell tier for human review.
- Full migration always included — activation covers the move from Shopify, WooCommerce, Webflow, BigCommerce, Wix or Squarespace onto Eldris-managed hosting. No separate migration invoice, no scope creep mid-build.
- Hreflang correct from day one — reciprocal hreflang tags on every page, language-specific XML sitemaps, validated in Google Search Console before launch. Most managed migrations break hreflang and silently lose 30–60% of European organic traffic; we do not.
- Hosting + SSL + GDPR included — Cloudflare-backed infrastructure with automated SSL renewal, GDPR-compliant cookie banner, EU data residency option. No separate hosting bill.
- Continuous content sync — add a new product in English on Monday, see it live in four languages by Friday. Maintenance is included in every monthly fee.
Sites bigger than Scale (over 25 pages, 200 posts or 75 products) get a bespoke quote at published per-asset rates: £35 per additional page, £8 per additional blog post, £15 per additional product, applied to activation only. Send your URL and we return a fixed scope and fixed price within 24 hours. Full pricing tables (including EUR and USD multipliers) at website.eldris.ai/website-translation-pricing.
Selling on Amazon DE, FR, IT, ES? You Need a Translated Brand Site
If you sell on Amazon Germany, France, Italy, or Spain, your Brand Registry application and your storefront copy must be in the local language. More importantly: German consumer law (TMG, VerpackG) requires German-language consumer-facing pages for anything shipped to a German address. France's INPI brand protection only recognises French-language assets.
Selling on Amazon EU without a translated brand site behind it is a leak point. Buyers click through from a German listing to a Shopify storefront in English; conversion drops 30–60% versus a native German storefront per our 2,000-site dataset. Brand Registry inspectors increasingly check the storefront language as part of trademark verification.
The Eldris EU expansion stack handles this end-to-end: EU Responsible Person for GPSR compliance, EPR registration for packaging, CPNP if you sell cosmetics, and translated storefront via website.eldris.ai. One operator across the stack means one quote and one project manager, instead of five separate vendors with handoff risk.
Two more pieces of the EU expansion programme.
Professional website translation
Six EU languages from a single supplier. The recommended front door for any brand launching into Europe before EPR and Responsible Person registrations are activated.
See translation pricing →Multilingual AI receptionist
Domain-trained AI operator that quotes live prices and books qualified clients in six languages. From £497/month for UK businesses.
See voice pricing →Compliance Engineered for Scale.
Talk to Eldris — website translation quote in 60 seconds, tiers from £497 activation + £99/month
Frequently Asked Questions
Clear answers for complex EU directives.