Background of the issue:
I was trying to log in to the admin dashboard via home-alarm.ca/wp-admin, but the URL automatically changes to the French domain alarme-maison.ca/wp-admin. This issue can be seen at hidden link.
Symptoms:
When I try to log in to the admin dashboard in the primary language, WordPress automatically changes the URL to the French domain against my will. However, if I clear the browser cache, it behaves properly.
Questions:
Why does the URL change to the French domain when I try to log in?
How can I prevent the URL from automatically changing to the French domain?
Staging can work with two domains in a local environment, or on cloudways. If you would like I can set up a cloudways site and we can migrate a copy of your site there for further testing. And I do come agross quite a few different issues when the SiteGround Optimizer plugin is enabled. Sometimes it can be resolved by adjusting the settings.
BTW, SiteGround was able to help me dodge the Safe Mode requirement upon trying to load a translated page, but it makes a hole in my site security by deactivating Security Optimizer's option Lock and Protect System Folders.
I still think WPML is the culprit as the English pages don't have this problem.
On top of that, the Yoast SEO Overview completely ignore all of my translated pages. They are currently looking into it as other issues are involved too with some English pages. Issues are everywhere I look. It never ends!
I wasn't suggesing you move your site to Cloudways, I was suggesting that I can set up a test site on our cloudways servers and migrate a copy of your site there, and we can test there with different domains per language in minimal settings to see if it's a general issue or if it could be a conflict between WPML and another plugin. If you'd like me to set that up, just let me know and I'll be happy to.
As I mentioned, I have seen various different issues on many sites when using the SiteGround Optimizer so I'm not surprised that there are issues between the two, unfortunately. Is this something they are working to resolve? If they can set up a test site on their servers where we can reproduce this in a clean install, I may be able to escalate to our compatibility team. I'll just need their help since the issue is happening on their serviers so can't reproduce without their assistance.
As for issues with Yoast, it should work seemlessly as long as you have the WPML SEO plugin add on which it looks like you do. If you continue seeing issues with Yoast, let me know and I can split this ticket into another one and we can address that issue there.
The DNS propagation is still not over yet, but it doesn't matter anymore.
Since Elementor hosting is NOT fully compatible with WPML, I've redirected my site back to SiteGround.
And, I've decided to convert the site to unilingual French to fix all issues with WPML. I also realize that by far most of the site visitors are from the U.S.A.. My target clients are locally only.
In such a case, I would be able to edit the French pages without any warnings. The million-dollar question is, since WPML added code to the backend of the pages, would that cause me any problems?
What do you mean by "WPML added code to the backend of my pages"? What code are you referring to? WPML inserts tables into the database and creates new pages/posts when you translate content. If you no longer want to use WPML, you can simply delete the translated content and use the RESET option in WPML -> Support -> Troubleshooting to remove the tables from the database.
In this case, I recommend setting French as your default language and then deleting the English content. Test on just a post or two to make sure that the French posts are not affected when you delete the translation. In WPML -> settings, make sure that the option to delete translations when deleting originals is unchecked.
I did just that, and everything seems to play out nicely, except for Yoast SEO. On all my French pages, Yoast is telling me that I have zero transition words present. Initially, I didn't, but I have since added a bunch of them, but still Yoast plugin does not see them. Everything works fine on the English pages.
The support guy is asking me if Polylang or WPML was involved in the translation. The answer is yes, but why does it matter??
Did that only happen after changing the default language of the site? If you try making a change to the French page, and add some additional transition words, does anything change? I can try setting up a clean install to see if I am able to reproduce this issue, and if so we can escalate to our compatiblity team. I just need to know if the issue happens only after switching default, and please also check if you create a new page with the original language in French if it happens there as well.
Never mind. The issue has been fixed. I had to change the site language to French in order for Yoast SEO plugin to analyse the French content properly. My bad!
