Skip Navigation

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

Problem:
The client wants to set the English version of their homepage as the default when visiting their website, without changing the default language of the site from German to English. They also inquired about configuring the browser language redirect to display the German version only when the browser language is German, and English for all other languages.
Solution:
1. To set the English version of the homepage as the default without changing the site's default language, it is necessary to change the WPML default language to English. Unfortunately, there is no alternative method to achieve this without changing the default language.
2. Configuring the browser language redirect to show German only for German browsers and English for all other languages is not possible directly through WPML settings. It might be achievable with custom coding, but by default, it will revert to the default language, which is German in this case.
3. We recommend exploring the option of redirecting based on IP for more tailored solutions. You can find more information on this at WPML Geotargeting.

Please note that using browser redirects can impact your site's Google indexing. If this solution does not apply to your case, or if it seems outdated, we highly recommend checking related known issues at WPML Known Issues, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. If further assistance is needed, please open a new support ticket.

This is the technical support forum for WPML - the multilingual WordPress plugin.

Everyone can read, but only WPML clients can post here. WPML team is replying on the forum 6 days per week, 22 hours per day.

This topic contains 1 reply, has 0 voices.

Last updated by Dražen Duvnjak 4 days, 1 hour ago.

Assisted by: Dražen Duvnjak.

Author Posts
November 26, 2024 at 12:20 pm #16444550

joachimT-4

Background of the issue:
I translated the website using the WPML Translation Editor. I want to set the translated page as the default homepage, so that when visiting the website it always shows the EN version of the frontpage by default. I don't want to change the default language to English, because new content will still be created in German and translated from there. I also tried the browser language redirect setting as a workaround. I could not set the browser language redirect to 'display German only when browser language is German - all other languages in English'. As far as I understand, this setting goes to English only for English browsers and all other languages in German. How can I set the translated version of the homepage as default without changing the default language of the whole website?
Is there a way to configure the browser language redirect to display German only when the browser language is German and all other languages in English?

Symptoms:

Questions:
1. Can I set the website to load in EN instead of DE - without changing EN as default language?
2. If not - can I set the automatic browser redirect to only show DE for German browsers and EN for all other languages - even though DE is the default language?

November 26, 2024 at 3:20 pm #16445825

Dražen Duvnjak
Supporter

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Europe/Zagreb (GMT+01:00)

Hello,

thanks for contacting us.

1) I am afraid there is no other way than to change the WPML default language to EN.

2) It is not possible via WPML out of the box, maybe with some custom code, since it will fall back to the default language for all other languages, in your case DE.

Also note that browser redirects can cause issues withthe Google index, as explained in our documentation.

3) You maybe want to check redirect based on IP and try to find solution there:

https://wpml.org/plugin-functionality/geotargeting/

Regards,
Drazen