Automated translators were not meant to be used for creating websites or translating important documents – they were meant for people to get some idea of what has been said in the other language.
That being said, I gave it a try to compare it with Babelfish – and although Babelfish often returns really strange results, it is more accurate. The Google translator was easier to read but the content was either structurally changed (giving a different meaning than intended) or not even translated.
The text used was something I know quite a bit about. Google told me almost nothing useful – while Babelfish, even in its usual garbled form, actually made the content 30-40% useful.