International language not using english meta

This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.

Problem: Canonical links wrong upon duplication of translations Solution: According to SEO rules (I am reading this - https://yoast.com/rel-canonical/), it would be wrong if we have multiple canonical links in case these are in fact translations.

In other words, we should stick to the rule - original has its own canonical and each next instance (whether it is duplicate or translation) which descendent from that instance should have any of the following:

- the first instance - for example translation - should have the new canonical link - every next instance - for example translation or duplicate of the translation - should have the original canonical link, because that original is in fact the parent

In any case, this is not related to Yoast, but to how WPML handles these cases. Relevant Documentation: https://yoast.com/rel-canonical/

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Tagged: Translation Management

This topic contains 6 replies, has 2 voices.

Last updated by emelieC 11 months ago.

Assigned support staff: Bruno Kos.

Author	Posts
July 24, 2019 at 11:39 am
emelieC	Hello, Our site has three languages: - Swedish - (default) - English (EU) - International (non-EU) We have translated the Swedish content to English (EU). We recently created the International (non-EU) language. The content is exactly the same as on English (EU) so we duplicated all pages and products from English (EU) to International (non-EU). We now see that the meta of the International pages is not translated. Instead of using the English (EU) meta, it is using the Swedish meta. Swedish is the default language. The International language is actually an exact copy of the english. The only difference is the currency. So it has been hell working with this, Because the default language is swedish not english. When now checking facebook debugger the cannonical url links to the swedish version: hidden link And we get all the meta from the swedish version of the page: hidden link What are we doing wrong? Kind regards, Marcus
July 24, 2019 at 11:54 am
July 24, 2019 at 1:59 pm #4275383
Bruno Kos Supporter Languages: English (English ) Timezone: Europe/Zagreb (GMT+02:00)	Hi, Thank you for contacting WPML support! I've checked the source code of all three pages (homepage in all three languages). From what I see, hidden link has: <link rel="canonical" href="<em><u>hidden link</u></em>" /> Which, in case you duplicated the English version, should not be having the Swedish URL. I'm currently discussing this with our compatibility team (since canonical links come from Yoast in your setup I believe). Therefore, I'm currently testing this here: One Click Login:hidden link Användarnamn:demo Lösenord:Y31NjK4qogL2 And I will get back to you with the results I find. Regards, Bruno Kos
July 25, 2019 at 6:22 am #4279475
Bruno Kos Supporter Languages: English (English ) Timezone: Europe/Zagreb (GMT+02:00)	Hi, I have tested this on our clean sandbox and I see the results: hidden link hidden link hidden link (this one is a duplicate from English one) The duplicate of the translation is having the original URL canonical links, so I have escalated this to our compatibility team for further testing. I will keep you posted on how it goes! Let me know if you were referring to something else, so that I update that ticket as well! Regards, Bruno Kos
July 26, 2019 at 11:19 am #4289361
emelieC	Thanks for the thorough work! Looking forward to your reply! Kind regards, Marcus
July 26, 2019 at 11:39 am #4289457
Bruno Kos Supporter Languages: English (English ) Timezone: Europe/Zagreb (GMT+02:00)	(changing Ticket status for internal purposes - please ignore)
July 29, 2019 at 1:37 pm #4300307
Bruno Kos Supporter Languages: English (English ) Timezone: Europe/Zagreb (GMT+02:00)	Hi, Our 2nd tier and WPML developers discussed this and this is the conclusion. According to SEO rules (I am reading this - hidden link), it would be wrong if we have multiple canonical links in case these are in fact translations. In other words, we should stick to the rule - original has its own canonical and each next instance (whether it is duplicate or translation) which descendent from that instance should have any of the following: - the first instance - for example translation - should have the new canonical link - every next instance - for example translation or duplicate of the translation - should have the original canonical link, because that original is in fact the parent Can you tell me if you think you think that it should be otherwise, according to SEO roles? In any case, this is not related to Yoast, but to how WPML handles these cases. Regards, Bruno Kos
August 9, 2019 at 10:31 am #4369495
emelieC	Hello Bruno, If I understand you right in my case: Swedish (default) : Would be original swedish English EU (translation) : Should be its own original even though it is a translation International (non-EU) : Should have a canonical link to English (EU) as that is the first translation which was created. I don't know practically how you will achieve this, as it is in theory possible to first duplicate some English pages to International, and then some International pages to English. It might become messy, if there is not a place where this above logic is clearly displayed and could be changed if needed. It is also important that when the logic has been set (for which english translation version should be the original), then no matter if Eng is duplicated to Int. or vice versa, the canonical logic should still be what is set in the settings. Do you agree? How is this affecting language codes? We are using different ones for each. Kind regards, Marcus