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Google's launch of an automatic translation service to work alongside its Chrome web browser could prove useful for companies looking to boost their website optimisation through organic search.

The new service offers instant translation of web pages, allowing Chrome users to translate a site without any external tools, such as extensions or plug-ins.

Sam Tilston, SEO specialist and marketing director at Memorybits.co.uk, said those involved in search engine marketing could harness auto-translation to gain exposure in growing markets such as China.

But is it still worth adding foreign meta tags to try and grab local language search engines now that Google Chrome can handle translation itself?

To ensure that pages of a website are appearing in foreign language search engines, Mr Tilston recommends that there should be some element of that language on the page.

"That does not mean in the meta data, but more along the lines of foreign language within the text of the page, perhaps foreign keywords," he explained.

Mr Tilston added that he believed auto-translation would become in big trend for website optimisation.

However, he said that website optimisation remained important as it was still necessary for sites to be found by foreign users in order to be translated.

And Mr Tilson warned that while auto-translation could potentially mean bigger audiences, ecommerce sites will have to consider whether they want their pages to be available to overseas visitors who ultimately may be unable to make a purchase.

According to Internet World Statistics, English speakers are the largest group on the web with 478 million users. This is followed by Chinese speakers (384 million) and Spanish speakers (137 million).