Second language version: /ru returns 404 and traffic goes to rivals

The problem

The site works and ranks for queries in the primary language, but the URL of the second language version returns 404 — the pages simply don't exist. Part of the audience searches for the same services in another language, sees competitors with a ready-made version in the results and clicks there. For a local business in large cities this isn't an abstract "market share" but specific calls that never came through.

The cost is easy to estimate: if half the queries in the region are phrased in another language, you are giving up half of your organic impressions for your own services in advance. Meanwhile the site itself is already built and paid for — the spend on traffic and content has already been made, only one layer is missing.

What makes it hard

Doing it head-on — copying the pages and running them through machine translation — fails for two reasons. First: without hreflang language markup, separate titles and descriptions and a specified region, search engines treat the new pages as duplicates of the originals and don't show them. Formally the version exists; in search it doesn't. Second: machine translation renders service names and calls to action literally, and the page starts speaking words nobody searches for — the service name stops matching the real query.

There is also a platform constraint. On website builders, language versions aren't available on every plan, and sometimes they're implemented so that the owner can't edit the second language independently. So before starting you need access to the admin account and a plan check: this determines whether the version will be part of the same site or whether you'll have to build a separate project — a different budget and permanent dependence on a contractor for every small edit.

How we solve it

We enable the second language inside the existing site, not on a separate domain or subdomain. We copy the pages that actually exist in the sitemap (often that's the homepage, "Thank you" and "Privacy policy" — meaning the volume is measured in hundreds of words, not weeks of work) and add a language switcher in the header so visitors can see the version exists.

Translation: machine output is used only as a draft, then every screen is proofread by hand — service names, buttons, prices, contacts, forms. Separately we check that service names match how people actually phrase them in search, not the literal translation.

The SEO layer is the whole point of the exercise: hreflang between versions, dedicated titles and descriptions in the second language, a specified region, a sitemap check. Then we submit the URLs for indexing in Search Console and a week later verify the pages have actually appeared in the results. If promotion is planned, at this same stage we collect queries in the second language for the target cities and build them into page titles, so nothing has to be rewritten twice.

What drives the price and timeline

For a small builder-based site (3–7 pages, up to 1,000 words) the market range is roughly $50–150 and 1–3 working days. The lower bound means "the version simply exists": pages, switcher, a quick proofread. The mid level adds manual proofreading of every screen, hreflang, separate title/description, region and index monitoring. The upper bound adds query research in the second language for specific cities and titles built around them. For a CMS site with a catalogue of hundreds of items the arithmetic differs: there the price is driven by content volume and by whether the engine supports multilingual setups out of the box.

The main price factor is not the number of pages but the amount of text that has to be proofread by hand, plus the platform's technical readiness for a second language. Budget separately for costs that don't go to the contractor: the builder plan may require an upgrade to unlock language versions — check this in the admin account before starting. Promotion in the second language is best treated as a separate stage, once the version is indexed and it becomes visible what it catches.