The slug, the default SEO title and the default SEO meta description of each page on my website are not translated (throught your Advanced Translation Editor), although in the WPML-plugin settings in the 'Custom Fields Translation' for Yoast and the settings for default SEO title and defautl SEO meta description in the String Translation are set, respecively, to 'Translatable' and to the translated languages.
FYI, I am using WPML and Yoast with Divi page builder/theme.
To ensure the quickest and most accurate support, please provide your debug information so I can look at some of your configurations. We have an excellent article on how to locate it here: https://wpml.org/faq/provide-debug-information-faster-support/.
Try the following, please:
❌ Please make a full website backup before proceeding ❌
1.
- Verify WPML SEO add-on is installed and active, then update WPML core, String Translation, WPML SEO, and Yoast SEO to latest versions.
- In WPML → Support → Troubleshooting, run: Clear the cache in WPML, Remove ghost entries from String Translation tables, and Fix post type assignment.
- Re-save Settings → Permalinks (click Save once).
- Test again on one page.
2.
- Go to WPML → String Translation.
- Filter Domain = admin_texts_wpseo_titles.
- Translate the relevant keys (e.g., title-home-wpseo, metadesc-home-wpseo, archive templates). Keep Yoast variables like %%title%%, %%sep%%, %%sitename%% intact and only change literal text.
- Flush any caches (Divi static CSS, page/object cache) and check front-end.
Sure, no problem. The ticket will remain open for two weeks without activity. If you need more time, just leave a message and the two weeks will be reset.
I have followed both options, you adviced above, on a staging version of the website, but to no avail. Meaning, I still do not see the translated SEO title and SEO meta description in the settings box of Yoast when being in WP Edit Page mode in the backend.
However, when I go to the front-end of the page and look at the html data using the browser's Inspector, I see the translated SEO title and meta description. So, somehow, the translations of the SEO title and meta description will not be shown in the Yoast page settings for the selected lanuage in the WP back-end. Hence, my confusion.
The same behavor holds for the live version of the website for which I did not follow your instructions.
So, on the one hand, everything is fine. On the other hand, there seems something wrong in the back-end that won't update the page-specific Yaost SEO settings. FYI, I only see this for the default Yoast SEO page settings, which you can set in the Yoast-plugin. So, for custom Yoast SEO settings set at page level, everything is translated and shown correctly in the WP back-end.
To be able to investigate the problem, I created a clean installation of WordPress, Yoast SEO, WPML, and all necessary WPML add-ons.
You can access the WordPress dashboard using the link below: hidden link
Kindly follow the steps below:
- Try to replicate the issue with minimal steps.
- Then let me know the steps to see the problem and reproduce it.
In this setup, I have translated the default "Hello World!" post to French and Spanish, and it shows the exact behavour as what I experience at my site.
To see what I mean:
1.) Go to the WP Dashboard and set the language of the dashboard to anything other than English;
2.) Go to Post section and click on the title of the post or Edit below it;
3.) Next, click on button 'Edit anyway (Not recommended)' and you are entering the edit screen of the post;
4.) Scroll down to the Yoast-settings beneath the content of the post, and there you will see that the default SEO title and default SEO meta description that I have set inside the Yoast SEO plugin, have not been translated, although I have added the string translations wihtin the WPML-plugin for it.
The editor UI you see after clicking “Edit anyway” isn’t the canonical place to translate per-post Yoast fields with WPML; those are meant to be translated via WPML’s Translation Editor (ATE). Meanwhile, the global default templates (Yoast Search Appearance) are admin strings and must be translated via String Translation/Admin Texts (wpseo_titles).
Even with correct translations, the backend editor UI may still show placeholders in the default language, while the front-end output and ATE reflect the correct translated values. Use the steps in Solution A to align behavior and verify real output.
Yes, indeed, ATE is the place to be for translating the source language. I always do that.
However, I sometimes have to go to a translated page for performing some custom tweaks, knowing that these tweaks will be reverted the next time I perform a translation. During one of these tweaks, I noticed the peculiar behavor. Hence, this ticket.
IMHO, I'd still expect to see here the translated text (after clicking the button Edit anyways) just like the user sees here the translated content of the page, even though it is not the place to be for translating the source language. It makes the behavor of WPML more transparent to the user without causing confusion.
