Google Translate Pro: translate your PrestaShop store into 100+ languages instantly
Your international customers land on your store and cannot understand the language. Adding every language manually in PrestaShop takes hours of translation work, a significant budget and ongoing maintenance. The result: visitors leaving your site without purchasing.
Google Translate Pro solves this problem by embedding Google's translation engine directly into your storefront. Visitors pick their language and the entire page is translated instantly, with no page reload. 6 customisable designs, 19 colour palettes, over 100 languages available.
How it works
The module relies on the Google Translate JavaScript API, the same engine that powers translate.google.com. A lightweight script detects page content and translates it on the fly into the visitor's chosen language.
- Install the module from your back office and pick your favourite design and colour palette.
- Configure the languages to offer, the widget position and the visual style that matches your store.
- That's it — your visitors click their language and the page is translated in real time by Google Translate.
All translation work is performed by Google's servers, on the visitor's browser side. Your PrestaShop server is not involved at all: no additional load on your hosting, no database queries on the front office, no perceptible slowdown.
6 designs for every theme
Visual integration is key. A poorly integrated language selector hurts the user experience and your store's credibility. Google Translate Pro offers 6 distinct designs, each suited to a specific use case:
- Simple — The classic Google Translate dropdown. Clean, discreet, ideal when you want a minimalist selector.
- Dropdown — A globe icon with a "Translate" dropdown menu. Elegant, compact, perfect for navigation bars.
- Horizontal — A horizontal bar displaying language codes (EN | FR | DE | ES). Ideal for headers and narrow navigation areas.
- Flags — National flags with language names. Visual, intuitive, immediately understood by every visitor.
- Flags Only — Flag icons only, no text. Ultra compact, perfect for tight spaces or sidebars.
- Modern — A card-style interface with a built-in search bar. Ideal when you offer many languages.
19 colour palettes
Every design is available in 19 carefully crafted palettes to match the most common brand identities: professional blues (Ocean, Sky, Royal, Azure), elegant purples (Violet, Grape, Lavender), natural greens (Emerald, Forest, Mint), energetic reds (Sunset, Cherry, Coral, Rose), vibrant pinks (Flamingo, Peach) and sober neutrals (Carbon, Slate, Gold).
That makes 114 possible combinations (6 designs × 19 colours) to find the perfect match for your store.
Detailed features
Language selection
You can choose exactly which languages to offer your visitors. By default all 100+ languages supported by Google Translate are available, but you can restrict the list to the languages relevant to your target market. Languages are grouped by category (European, Popular) to make selection easy in the back office.
Flexible placement
The module integrates through PrestaShop's hook system, giving it 10 display positions:
- displayFooter (default) — page footer
- displayNav1 / displayNav2 — main navigation bar
- displayTop — top of page
- displayLeftColumn / displayRightColumn — side columns
- displayNavFullWidth — full-width navigation
- displayTopColumn / displayBanner / displayNav — other positions
Hide the Google toolbar
By default, Google Translate shows a toolbar at the top of the translated page. Google Translate Pro lets you hide it with a single click in the configuration, for a cleaner user experience.
Built-in national flags
The "Flags" and "Flags Only" designs use the flag-icons library, which includes flags for over 250 countries in SVG format for pixel-perfect quality on every screen, including Retina displays.
Lightweight and fast
Only the CSS and JavaScript for the chosen design are loaded. The Google Translate script is called asynchronously, so it never blocks page rendering. No front-end database queries. Zero impact on your store's performance.
Real-world use cases
French artisan shop — A French artisan store attracts traffic from Germany, Italy and Spain. By installing the "Flags" design in the navigation, the catalogue becomes instantly understandable to those visitors.
B2B marketplace — An industrial parts marketplace receives quote requests in English, Arabic and Chinese. The "Modern" design with language search lets international buyers browse the technical catalogue in two seconds.
European fashion store — A fashion store ships across Europe. The "Horizontal" design with the 6 main European languages (FR, EN, DE, ES, IT, PT) sits naturally alongside the cart and account icons.
Rapid international launch — A startup launches its store in French and wants to test the international market. Google Translate Pro makes the store accessible in 100+ languages immediately, allowing them to identify high-potential markets before commissioning targeted translations.
Before & After
| Scenario | Without the module | With Google Translate Pro |
|---|---|---|
| Foreign visitor | Leaves the site because they can't understand the content | Clicks their flag and browses in their language |
| Adding a language | Weeks of manual translation | Already available among the 100+ languages |
| New product | Must be translated in every language | Automatically translated, nothing to do |
| Translation cost | Significant budget per language | Zero translation cost |
| Visual integration | Raw Google Translate widget, not customisable | 6 designs × 19 colours, blended with your theme |
| Server impact | Each language multiplies database load | Zero load, client-side translation |
Technical specifications
- PrestaShop compatibility: 1.7.0 to 9.x
- Translated languages: 100+ via Google Translate
- Designs: 6 distinct visual styles
- Palettes: 19 colour themes
- Positions: 10 display hooks
- Architecture: 100% hooks, no overrides
- Multishop: full multi-shop support
- Database: no tables created, configuration stored as JSON in
ps_configuration
Installation
- Install the module from your PrestaShop back office (Modules > Module Manager).
- Choose your design from the 6 available styles and select your colour palette.
- Pick the languages to display and the widget position (footer, navigation, column…).
- The translator appears immediately on your store — your customers can now browse in their own language.
A real-time preview lets you see exactly how the language selector will look before you save your configuration.
Conclusion
Internationalisation is one of the most powerful growth levers in e-commerce, yet it is often held back by the cost and complexity of translations. Google Translate Pro removes that barrier by making your PrestaShop store instantly accessible in over 100 languages.
With its 6 customisable designs, 19 colour palettes and 10 display positions, the module blends visually into any PrestaShop theme. Its lightweight architecture (client-side translation, zero server queries) guarantees it will never affect your store's performance.
Open your store to the world
Install Google Translate Pro and make your store accessible in 100+ languages instantly. Available on PrestaShop Addons and PrestaToolBox.
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