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How to Translate URL Slugs with WPML

Amir
Updated
March 24, 2025

WPML lets you translate URL slugs into different languages. This includes slugs for pages, posts, custom post types, and taxonomies.

A URL slug is the part of a URL that identifies a specific page on a website. Both search engines and users rely on slugs to understand the topic of a page, so it’s important to make them clear and easy to read. 

URL with custom post type and page title slugs
URL with custom post type and page title slugs

Getting Started

In order to translate URL slugs with WPML, install and activate:

  • WPML
  • WPML String Translation

Translate Custom Post Types URL Slugs

To translate custom post type URL slugs:

  1. Go to WPML → Settings.
  2. Scroll down to the Slug translations section and enable the checkbox.
  3. Next, under Post Types Translation, set your custom post type to Translatable – only show translated items.
Setting custom post type to Translatable
Setting custom post type to Translatable
  1. Finally, expand the section for setting different slugs and enter translations. 
Translating slugs for custom post types
Translating slugs for custom post types

Your custom post type slugs will now appear translated in the URL. 

Custom post type in English
Custom post type in English
Custom post type in Spanish
Custom post type in Spanish

Translate Page and Post URL Slugs

By default, when you send pages and posts for translation, WPML automatically translates their URL slugs using the title. 

For example, when translating a page titled ‘Mixed Berry Smoothie’ into Spanish, WPML will use the new page title, ‘Batido de Bayas Mixtas’, when creating the URL:

smooothy.com/es/receta/batido-de-bayas-mixtas/

If you want more control, you can also translate the slugs by yourself:

  1. Go to WPML → Settings and scroll down to Translated documents options.
  2. Under Page URL, choose the Translate option and save.
Setting the option to Translate the page URL
Setting the option to Translate the page URL

You can now translate the URL slug when editing pages in the Advanced Translation Editor. 

Translating URL in ATE
Translating the page URL slug in the Advanced Translation Editor

Translate Taxonomy URL Slugs

To translate taxonomy URL slugs, follow our taxonomy translation guide. 

Copy URL to Secondary Language

In addition to translating URL slugs, WPML also lets you ‘copy’ slugs into secondary languages.

Smoothie recipe in English
Smoothie recipe in English
Smoothie recipe in Chinese
Smoothie recipe in Chinese

This is useful when your website has non-ASCII languages (Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, e.g.) and you want to avoid making your URLs look spammy when shared across the web. For example, the following Chinese URL will look like this when copy-pasted:

example.com/煮饭/ → example.com/%E7%85%AE%E9%A5%AD/

To make your URLs look better, you can copy your original URL slugs into other languages:

  1. Go to WPML → Languages.
  2. Under Site Languages, click the Edit Languages link.
  3. In the table, set the Encode URLs value to Yes in the language you want slugs to be copied to. Click Save.
Encoding URLs for Chinese
  1. Next, go to WPML → Settings.
  2. Under Translated documents options, set Page URL to Copy from original language and save.

Your URL slugs will now copy to your (encoded) secondary language when you translate content.

Get Started with WPML

To translate URL slugs with WPML, you need the Multilingual CMS or Multilingual Agency account type. 

Visit our pricing page to learn more about our plans.