Meta descriptions in other languages than the page's content?

[Andreea-M]

Hi guys,

I need an opinion on the optimization of meta descriptions for a website available in 6 languages that faces the following situation:

• Main pages are translated in 6 languages, English being primary >> all clear here. BUT
• The News section includes articles only in English, that are displayed as such on all other language versions of the website. Example:
  website.com/en/news/article 1
  website.com/de/neues/article 1
  website.com/fr/nouvelles/article 1
  etc.

Because we don't have the budget right now to translate all content, I was wondering if I could add only the Meta Titles and Meta Descriptions in the specific languages (using Google Translate), while the content to remain in English.

Would this be accepted as reasonable enough for Google, or would it affect the website ranking?
I'd like to avoid major mistakes, so I'm hoping someone here on this forum has a better idea of how to proceed in this case.

[sarahwalsh]

when you're having a brand-new CMS website designed, no matter if it is a brochure or an e-commerce website make sure that you add good well written meta title and meta description to each page to improve the CTR

[Andreea-M]

Thanks Andreas, it makes sense. In this case I think I'll apply the "no index" strategy for those pages, the website has great potential and I wouldn't want to risk a bad reputation.

[paints-n-design]

In this case, I wont even have a copy for the other languages. 
It is not useful to translate title and Description and still have 100% the same content.

Think the best option is really not to have them in all languages, or if there is no other option, noindex them and don't link to this duplicates in the different languages. If you want to link the english articles - ok - do it to the original once and mention that they are english only.  Linking from german content to english stuff often kills what google think about your domain.  At them moment you may talk a lot about "Autos" on your german domain, if you link to english stuff, you may talk a lot more about "fixing tyres" or "selfdriving". Just a silly example, but I think you know what I mean?

I killed something you think about doing now for a german client. 1-2 month later traffic doubled....