Background of the issue:
I'm trying to translate my website Abayas.it into Italian from French. I attempted to use the WPML option 'A different domain per language' to connect the domains abaya.fr and abayas.it, but it failed.
Symptoms:
The option 'A different domain per language' failed to connect the domains for translation.
Questions:
How can I successfully use the 'A different domain per language' option to translate my site?
What steps should I follow to translate my website from French to Italian using WPML?
While one of my teammates addresses your ticket, I will provide you with some initial debugging steps.
You need to ensure that all your domains (or subdomains) point to the WordPress site where WPML is installed. If you need assistance with this setup, you can contact your hosting provider.
This is what I've done. Please check the screenshot.
Abayas.it is parked inside Abaya.fr (where WPML is installed).
Here is the definition of parked domain taken from Siteground:
Parked domains are additional domains that can be used to reach your site. They can be used in cases where you want your domain to have different spellings to open the same site, or if you want to make sure you don't lose any misguided visitors by making all TLDs of your main domain name (e.g. yoursite.com, yoursite.net, yoursite.org).
I already spoke with my hosting provider but they are not helping.
My question is:
Abayas.it redirects to Abaya.fr, is that normal? Or should I ask my domain provider to remove this auto redirection?
If the setup is done correctly, Abayas.it should display the exact content from the .fr domain instead of redirecting. This is how we can verify that it has been configured properly.
After confirming this, you can add it in the WPML settings under Languages, where you should change the format to "domain per language."
Unfortunately, since these settings are strictly related to the domain and hosting panels, and given that we cannot access customers' domain or hosting panels for security and privacy reasons, there is not much more we can do in cases like this. In cases related to this configuration, our role is primarily to guide you in the right direction.
If the hosting or domain provider cannot assist, I recommend hiring a developer or a WPML contractor (https://wpml.org/contractors/).
I don’t believe that setting up a mask is the right solution. A mask would display a specific URL in the browser’s address bar while dynamically serving content from a different domain, which we want to avoid.
The current issue arises because the server settings are not configured correctly. Unfortunately, I can't assist with this, as I do not have access to the server and I’m not authorized to make changes, as mentioned earlier. Additionally, I'm not familiar with how SiteGround is set up in their backend panel.
I recommend contacting SiteGround directly, sharing our documentation with them if necessary, and clarifying that you do not need a mask. Instead, you need to set up the .it domain as an alias for the .fr domain. Please ensure that the mask is also removed.
I hope that this info will guide you in the right direction and that this issue will be resolved as soon as possible.
