Google's John Mueller was asked again about if you should translate the content of the URL itself to the language of the content used on that page. John this time said, "translating parts of the URL per language is less critical for search."
In 2020, Google said mixed languages in URLs are fine and in 2022 Google said URLs don't have to be translated. So this is all very similar advice from the previous advice Google has given on this topic.
John said on Twitter, "What's important is that you have unique URLs per language version, and that the content doesn't dynamically change languages. Search engines need to be able to index each language version individually (if you want to see the languages in search results)."
John added, "Translating parts of the URL per language is less critical for search (as long as it's a unique URL), but I assume users appreciate it, and it helps them to understand what a page is about."
So just make sure the URL is unique to that translated page and if you want to translate the URL, sure, you can. But don't go back and translate existing URLs, keep them as they are if they are indexed and ranking.
Here are these tweets:
That would be a good question for @JohnMu
— Tom Voltz (@Tom_Voltz1) January 20, 2023
Translating parts of the URL per language is less critical for search (as long as it's a unique URL), but I assume users appreciate it, and it helps them to understand what a page is about.
— John Mueller is mostly not here 🐀 (@JohnMu) January 20, 2023
Forum discussion at Twitter.
