I'm certain all product categories are complete, including slugs. The source languages are English, Chinese, and Greek, and they appear normal. Product categories in other languages result in 404 or 301 errors.
I encountered an issue related to taxonomy translation in WPML, specifically with WooCommerce product categories.
WPML automatically translates the product category base slug (product-category) into other languages. For example, in Italian it becomes:
/categoria-prodotto/
However, in my menu, the links still use the original English slug:
/product-category/...
As a result, when visiting category pages in other languages via the menu, it leads to 404 errors.
For example:
Correct Italian URL:
/it/categoria-prodotto/compensato/compensato-rivestito-in-pellicola/
But menu links point to:
/it/product-category/compensato/compensato-rivestito-in-pellicola/ → 404
Interestingly, when I go to WPML → Taxonomy Translation, open the product categories, and simply click “Update” (without changing anything), all translations start working correctly again.
This makes me think the issue is related to how WPML handles:
Taxonomy base slug translation
Category / slug synchronization
Possibly rewrite rules or permalink structure
My questions are:
Where can I configure whether the base slug product-category should be translated or not?
Is there a recommended setting to keep it consistent across all languages to avoid 404 issues?
Why does simply re-saving taxonomy translations fix the issue temporarily?
Another question is why, when I edit templates in Elementor or translate other languages, it doesn't redirect to the WPML translator but instead takes me to the Elementor editor.
