[Closed] "Best Practice" guidance on internal links

Ok, I might be in denial here but again, I really appreciate you working with me on this.

I want to run through my understanding of the issue and summarize everything to organize my thoughts: (Is there anything here that incorrect?)

- The website was working with relative links (used everywhere) would direct to the French version of the website if there was content available. I've double and triple checked with my translator as we have been working on translating this site for over a month now and had things working, thinking we were ready for launch)
- roughly a week before launch (scheduled for TODAY), this stops working and internal links still direct to the correct page BUT to the default language (URL is missing the language directory, like "/fr/" for the French version)
- was told NOT to manually hardcode URLs with the language directory
- I'm told that the way I put in the links is the wrong format and needs to be updated (I since went through all of my pages and manually add the full domain)
- I couldn't get the previously relative URLs to stop appearing on the advanced translation editor page as they were initially entered incorrectly and were showing up not as URL's (hidden from view unless searched) but as actual translatable strings. After editing the relative URLs, they were still appearing but now seem to no longer show up
- While they are flagged in the ATE as URL's (correctly) and they are directing to pages with a translation available, they are still linking to the default language page and not the translation. Documentation on this function is lacking.
- now I'm finding out that actually using an editor for internal links is not possible without having to manually enter in the french version of the links, where the documentation and explanation of this feature is for a specific but different use-case: directing users to different translations of external links.
- the new suggested workaround is to manually enter in internal links which seems to contradict the earlier response who admittedly did not have all of the information.

This would have been a dealbreaker regarding the selection of WPML had we known this up front. Other than just my two days spent trying to get this up and running when we are scheduled to launch, it's required a lot of time from my translator who is also very expensive as we needed a bilingual engineer to take literal translations generated by tools like DeepL and Google translate and apply the verbiage of the building code and engineering principles which often do not translate literally. All this to say that I've sunk a lot into this...

At this point, I want to ask if this can get flagged and reported as a possible issue? I pointed to tickets in the past referencing the relative links and even if it is not in the required format, it was working before and now is not. If it can be shared with a developer to at least check whether it is a bug, that could be ruled out. In any case, after going through the entire site and adjusting these, then getting my translator to comb through and update everything, the URLs are now correctly being identified as links, and while meeting the requirements to be translated (see above), are being kept verbatim on the translated sites when I believe they should be identified and pointed to the translated content. This could be a bug, but at the very least I wish there was more clear and thorough documentation outlining how this works and why it needs to be set up the way it does. I've found that most information much be gleaned from old tickets which disappear when they re more than 2 years old.

First of all, I would like to ask that this be escalated to a developer to at least get a comment explaining the behaviour I'm seeing here. On top of escalating this to someone in the dev team to investigate (and admittedly may rule out as not being a technical issue), is there a way to get another set of eyes on this ticket to affirm the advice I'm being told here? I am concerned that spending the significant time needed to hardcode every translated link goes against the intended behaviour and that something else is going on, explaining why my internal links stopped working.

Again, I've appreciated your patience and completely understand that the support job is difficult and frustrating. You've been very patient with me!

Sincerely,
Brad

Thank you very much, and appreciate the follow up! Just back to work after a brief vacation which is why I am so delayed.

I ended up having a call with Agnes Bury mainly to give feedback on the documentation of this and her initial reaction was that it seemed to be a technical issue, where these elements as configured (using the now corrected URL format).

For point 2. I will wait for any updates (Agnes might email me directly on this if there are updates) and am hoping that a fix will be found and released through an update (that I also understand takes time).

For point 3. I think my plan will be to wait and hold off on this as I don't think it's a proper fix, and on top of requiring a lot of time, can cause issues later on down the road if we make any changes to our settings (like how our language directories are handled, for instance).

Appreciate this mater being escalated 🙂 Will keep an eye out for any updates. Thanks again

Following up to say that the migration completion email notification has come in, so we are ready for your team to have a look.

Thanks again,
Brad

Thank you for the update. The WP-filebase plugin is used for hosting and linking to hundreds of academic papers (individual PDFs) across hundreds of posts.

Do you have any insight into why all of these links would have been working before the most recent update? It might have been a coincidence with something in the theme or WP-Bakery also making a change in an update but all of these links were all tested and working beforehand. This was also with pretty much all links formatted "incorrectly" as well.

Would you like me to add the XML included above and test it? Or is this to replace all or part of what was provided previously?

Thanks again,
Brad

Hello, appreciate the follow up. Was able to test with the update and had interpreted the change in XML code as follows:

<wpml-config>
<shortcodes>
<shortcode>
<tag>vc_icon</tag>
<attributes>
<attribute>title</attribute>
<attribute encoding="vc_link" type="link">link</attribute>
</attributes>
</shortcode>
<shortcode>
<tag>vc_pricing_table</tag>
<attributes>
<attribute encoding="vc_link" type="link">btn_link</attribute>
</attributes>
</shortcode>
<shortcode>
<tag>nectar_icon</tag>
<attributes>
<attribute>title</attribute>
<attribute encoding="vc_link" type="link">url</attribute>
</attributes>
</shortcode>
</shortcodes>
</wpml-config>

I may have misinterpreted but that is what I have.

I updated the link format for the icons on the homepage which are not too far down the page and ran the link scan tool after the french translation was reviewed and updated by the translator. (hidden link)

They're still linked internally but are not pointing to the French version of that page sto still no dice :(.

Is there a practical way for me to try reverting to the older version of the WPML plugin while keeping my settings and translations to see if that makes a difference? I would be willing to try this if it is the case.

Thanks again and sorry we aren't having any luck...

I'm away over the winter holidays so no need to prioritize a quick response, getting to it in the new year is fine 🙂

Happy new year! Thank you for setting that up. I have uploaded both the main theme and child theme, along with the required companion plugins.

Let me know if you need anything else 🙂

Thanks again!
Brad