Google Translate Proxy Pages Are Dominating AI Overviews in Europe, too — And No One Controls It

Massive Visibility Gains in Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden, and France Spark Questions About Neutrality in Generative Search Google Translate’s /translate proxy pages are quietly becoming some of the most visible and visited results in AI Overviews across Europe — bypassing traditional SEO strategies and creating a new wave of Google-owned visibility.

While the SEO world debates content quality, AI click-through rates, attribution, and E-E-A-T, Google’s own translated versions of foreign content are quietly taking over top positions — especially in countries where high-quality native-language content is sparse. Just in Turkey, Google Translate pages are visible in around 10 MILLION of queries which I previously reported here.

*Update: Gianluca Fiorelli also mentioned on X, he previously noticed the situation and discussed this on Google Search Event in Madrid. *

• In Brazil, Google drives over 90M of monthly traffic.
• In India, Google drives over 100M of monthly traffic.

Here’s what the latest AIO (AI Overview) appearance data reveals:

Country	AIO Appearances	Estimated Organic Traffic	% Change (April to May)
Sweden	14,483	~180K	—
Netherlands	49,336	~1M	—
Spain	109,127	~1.2M	—
Germany	57,000	~1.6M	+40,981,900% (from just 4 in April)
France	35,847	~1M	—

⚠️ These are not original content pages from publishers — they are Google-hosted translated versions of English content, loaded via translate.google.com/translate and rendered under translate.goog.

As you can see, Semrush shows at least 658M monthly traffic (of course it’s much more than that) is controlling by Google.

What’s Happening Here?

When Google AI Overviews trigger in local-language queries but can’t find sufficient native-language content, it now increasingly defaults to:

• Translating authoritative English sources on the fly
• Serving them via Google’s own proxy URLs
• Injecting those results directly into AI Overviews, ahead of local publishers
• You can’t compete with translated pages even you have authority in your country. You can’t just beat international websites, Forbes or others.
• In many cases, users never even see the source domain, as the content is wrapped and rendered within Google’s own translated page.

It may be designed for “feeding” the Gemini models. Thanks to Glenn Gabe before, he pointed the Reddit translated pages were gaining traction. And now Google Translate is coming.

Why This Matters for SEO, Publishers & Regulators

Zero SEO control: Publishers can’t optimize for /translate results, and SEOs can’t influence rankings here — the trigger is purely algorithmic.

Google becomes the content platform: This is no longer just “search.” Google is now hosting, rewriting, and serving content at scale.

Data and behavior tracking: All interactions (scroll, click, bounce, session time) happen through Google’s infrastructure (translate.goog), not the original publisher’s domain.

See an example proxy page here.

Any page can be translated and the final decide belongs to Google. https://www-formula1-com.translate.goog/en/latest/article/this-is-just-the-start-stella-backs-norris-to-hit-top-form-after-cold-blood.49SQEeWyBALBaqG1QevsvT

Fairness in SERPs: Native-language publishers risk being bypassed, especially in non-English markets, unless they compete against Google’s own translations of third-party content.

Update: Thanks to Richard Hearne. https://x.com/RedCardinal/status/1927356875114176665

You can control the visibility for Translate Proxy Pages according to Google with a header tag. Adaption is very low - I think big players don’t want to use this tag, unless it’s for “free AI training”.

Proxy SEO: A Black Box

This phenomenon, unofficially dubbed “Proxy SEO”, introduces a black-box layer into AI-driven search visibility. Even if your content is being used, it may not bring brand equity, analytics, or traffic back to your original domain. The current network requests on these proxy pages show that it’s sending traffic to actual GA property but what about all other metrics?

…

And worse — you might not even know it’s happening.

It only takes around a month to reach over 1 billion pageviews for any Google’s project/idea. Or less than a month?

The Bigger Picture: LLM-First SERPs & Google’s Language Layer

As generative AI becomes the default interface for search, LLM-optimized surfacing replaces traditional ranking. Google Translate’s role here is both strategic and underexamined:

• It fills content gaps in real-time
• It keeps users inside Google’s domain ecosystem
• It sets a precedent for future AI-owned pathways to knowledge, especially in underserved languages
• It feels like a 2018 vibe, remember AMP pages?

Update: You can check your Translated Pages performance under Search Console

Follow the steps in the image below.

Final Takeaway

If you’re working in international SEO or digital publishing, you’re no longer just competing with other sites — you may be competing with Google’s own translated version of your content.

This calls for:

• Auditing how your English content is being surfaced via translate.google.com
• Monitoring AI Overview coverage across international markets
• Rethinking multilingual strategies to avoid being “proxied out” of your own visibility

What do you think? Join the conversion here on X.

Update: Lovely SEO community from Spain is also reporting here; https://x.com/carlosredondo/status/1927435986499244320

Thanks to Juan https://x.com/seostratega/status/1927653016078876922

https://x.com/natzir9/status/1927629904662724962

[From Natzir https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7333400498886041600/] (https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7333400498886041600/)

https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7333404710684487680/

We have a solution now, thanks to Nazir!

He shared a great code snippet for preventing your website/webpage translate to Google’s AI Mode. Here is the explanation from Nazir;

Script to retrieve traffic from translated AI Overviews that don’t end up in your domain and stay on Google.

Context: Google is translating content and serving it from its own translate subdomain for AIOs. It’s not bad that it does, the bad thing is that your traffic stays. For example, from the PAA it also does it, but it does not keep it. More info: https://lnkd.in/emF-9STS

✅ Solution: Add this script to between the head tags from your website: https://gist.github.com/natzir/f13e37febb8ba7e5f1e9caed620c26d4

What’s he doing?

• Detects the specific “_x_tr_pto=sge” parameter of AIOs
• Automatically redirects the visitor to your site
• Allows normal translations (only redirects traffic from AIOs)

Read the original post here: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/natzir_script-para-recuperar-el-tr%C3%A1fico-de-activity-7333567358558486530-MlWc/