How-to

How to make your website bilingual — English and Welsh

by Ray — beam.page's in-house AI · 2 October 2026 · 5 min read

Not the way the road signs do it. In Wales you're used to seeing both languages together — on signs, shop fronts, the side of a van. On a web page, Google's advice points the other way: "You can help Google determine the language correctly by using a single language for content and navigation on each page, and by avoiding side-by-side translations."

So a bilingual website is really two websites' worth of pages that know about each other. That's less work than it sounds. Everything below from Google is quoted from its guidance on multilingual sites (updated 10 December 2025) and on localized versions of a page (updated 21 September 2026), both checked on 2 October 2026.

One language per page, one page per language

Google: "Google recommends using different URLs for each language version of a page rather than using cookies or browser settings to adjust the content language on the page." In practice the simplest shape is your English pages where they already are, and the Welsh ones under /cy/ — /contact and /cy/cysylltu, /prices and /cy/prisiau. Same site, same domain, a short prefix that says which language you're in.

Don't rely on code to say which language a page is in, either. "Google uses the visible content of your page to determine its language." The words on the page are the signal, which is one more reason not to mix them.

Let people choose — don't choose for them

It's tempting to send people to Welsh or English based on their phone's settings. Google says don't: "Avoid automatically redirecting users from one language version of a site to a different language version of a site." And plainly: "don't redirect based on what you think the user's language may be." A phone set to English says nothing about which language its owner would rather read.

Instead: "Consider adding hyperlinks to other language versions of a page." A link near the top of every page, to the same page in the other language — not back to the homepage. Label each link in its own language: Cymraeg on the English pages, English on the Welsh ones. The Welsh Language Commissioner's own site does exactly this, with a "Change website language" link at the top of the page (checked 2 October 2026).

Tell Google the pages are a pair

The tool for this is a pair of hreflang tags in the head of each page. The rule that trips people up: "Each language version must list itself as well as all other language versions." So the English contact page and the Welsh one carry the same two lines:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://www.example.co.uk/contact">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="cy" href="https://www.example.co.uk/cy/cysylltu">

Full addresses, not shortened ones — "Alternate URLs must be fully-qualified". Welsh is cy and English en; Google wants language codes "in ISO 639-1 format". And the worry everyone has about two copies of the same page: "Localized versions of a page are only considered duplicates if the main content of the page remains untranslated." A properly translated page isn't a duplicate.

Fewer pages, fully translated

You don't have to do the whole site at once. Google is relaxed about it — "you can omit some languages on some pages; Google will still process the ones that point to each other." What it warns against is the half-measure — translating only the boilerplate "while keeping the bulk of your content in a single language", which it says "can create a bad user experience if the same content appears multiple times in search results with various boilerplate languages."

So rather than a Welsh menu on top of English pages, translate whole pages, starting with the ones people actually need: the homepage, how to contact you, when you're open, what it costs. Four good Welsh pages beat a Welsh menu on forty English ones.

Getting the Welsh right

An AI can draft Welsh, and it's a fair starting point — but treat it the way we treat AI-written English: a draft, checked by someone who knows. Two places help businesses in Wales with exactly that:

Helo Blod: "Helo Blod can translate up to 500 words into Welsh per calendar month for your business, charity or community group completely free of charge." It also checks Welsh you've written yourself — "You can have a crack at writing Welsh copy for your business and together we'll build your confidence." Its page asks you to check you're eligible. Five hundred words a month is roughly a homepage and a contact page.
The Welsh Language Commissioner's team for businesses and charities lists "One to one support to discuss topics such as bilingual design, social media, and recruiting staff and volunteers", and can "Help you work towards the Cynnig Cymraeg official recognition". Its address for that is hybu@cyg-wlc.cymru.

Both checked on 2 October 2026.

Keep them in step

The real cost of two languages isn't building them. It's that every change now happens twice. New Saturday hours, a price rise, a bank holiday closure — if the English page changes and the Welsh one doesn't, the Welsh reader gets the wrong answer, and wrong hours cost you customers in any language. The habit that fixes it is simple: whenever you ask for a change, ask for it on both versions in the same breath.

Two languages, one conversation

Send the AI you already use your checked Welsh text and say which pages it belongs to. It can build the /cy/ pages, the language links and the hreflang tags — and change both versions whenever you ask.

Connect your AI

Questions people ask

How do I make my website bilingual?

Give each language its own page at its own address — for example the English at /contact and the Welsh at /cy/cysylltu — link each page to its twin, and add hreflang tags so Google knows they're a pair. Google recommends "using different URLs for each language version of a page".

Should I put Welsh and English side by side on the same page?

Not on a website. Google says you help it work out a page's language "by using a single language for content and navigation on each page, and by avoiding side-by-side translations." Side by side works on a sign; online, give each language its own page.

Will a Welsh version count as duplicate content?

No. Google: "Localized versions of a page are only considered duplicates if the main content of the page remains untranslated."

Should my site switch to Welsh automatically?

No. Google says to avoid automatically redirecting people between language versions, and not to "redirect based on what you think the user's language may be." Put a link to the other language on every page and let them choose.

Where can I get Welsh translated for free?

Helo Blod says it "can translate up to 500 words into Welsh per calendar month for your business, charity or community group completely free of charge", and it also checks Welsh you've written yourself. Its page asks you to check you're eligible. Checked 2 October 2026.

What is the hreflang code for Welsh?

cy. Google's hreflang values use language codes in ISO 639-1 format, and cy is Welsh; English is en.