Google's "NoTranslate" Tag To Prevent Translation in Search

Sep 1, 2009 - 8:36 am 9 by
Filed Under Google

For a few years now, some webmasters have been trying to figure out ways to prevent Google from allowing users to translate their pages with the Google Translate tool. From time to time, webmaster ask if there is a way to prevent Google from displaying the "translate this page" link in the Google search results from showing up. We have such a question at Google Webmaster Help forums just the other day.

Here is a picture of the "Translate this page" option in action:

Translate This Page in Google

Did you know there is a tag to prevent Google from showing the "Translate this page" option in the search results?

Google says if "you prefer not have your page translated by Google Translate, just insert the following meta tag into your HTML file:"

<meta name="google" value="notranslate">

However, if you don't want a section of your webpage to be translated, just add "class=notranslate" to any HTML element to prevent that element from being translated.

The question asked in the Google Webmaster Help is that he wants to allow Google to offer this but only for certain languages. For example, he doesn't want to allow users to translate his Spanish words into anything else, because those are product names. It would be neat to have the option of specifying what to translate into which languages, at the webmaster level - but I am not sure how many webmasters would use that feature.

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: January 30, 2026

Jan 30, 2026 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Rank Volatility Heated, AI Overviews To Send Less Traffic, Opt Out Of It, Yahoo Scouts & Bing AI Performance Report

Jan 30, 2026 - 8:01 am
Google Updates

Google Search Ranking Volatility Super Heated January 29 & 30

Jan 30, 2026 - 7:51 am
Google Ads

Google Ads Tests Third-Party Endorsement Content On Search Ads

Jan 30, 2026 - 7:41 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Search Adds Preferred Sources Help Docs

Jan 30, 2026 - 7:31 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Review Appeals No Longer Delayed

Jan 30, 2026 - 7:21 am
 
Previous Story: Bing's Home Page Picture Changer Missing For Some