Skip Navigation

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.

Tagged: 

This topic contains 3 replies, has 0 voices.

Last updated by jeremiahH 1 month, 2 weeks ago.

Assisted by: Otto.

Author Posts
April 22, 2025 at 6:48 pm #16957091

jeremiahH

Background of the issue:
I'm trying to send over pages for translation to BLEND. We use Advanced Custom Fields and have the Advanced Custom Fields Multilingual plugin activated. We have set the ACF fields we would like translated. Link to a page where the issue can be seen: hidden link
This also occurs on our staging hidden link

We have another ticket opened where we've shared credentials to our site that can be used.

Symptoms:
The word count estimate is really low for all of our pages. For example, the About page says there is only 1 word as word estimate, despite having multiple ACF fields. In the past, saving the English page worked but it doesn't seem to be working now.

Questions:
Why is the word count estimate so low despite having multiple ACF fields?
Why doesn't saving the English page work to update the word count anymore?

April 23, 2025 at 5:08 pm #16961583

Otto
WPML Supporter since 09/2015

Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español )

Timezone: America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires (GMT-03:00)

Hello,

The estimate takes into account the content in the posts and not postmeta.

WPML's word count feature is designed to give a quick and general overview of the content that needs translation. To keep this tool efficient and responsive for all users, we focus on the content found in posts and pages.

Custom fields are often used for many different purposes and can store a wide range of data — from layout settings to serialized content. Including them in the estimate would require significant processing and could impact the performance of your site, especially on larger installations.

While we understand that some websites use custom fields extensively for their main content, these are the exception rather than the rule. For the majority of users, our current approach provides a good balance between performance and practicality.

WPML offers an "estimate", indicating that it may not capture every word depending on how the content is structured.

We have this feature request on our list; we may implement it in the future, but it's not yet planned for future releases.

Best Regards,
Otto

April 24, 2025 at 3:26 pm #16965167

jeremiahH

I see, it's just that previously, it was and we were seeing more accurate word counts. And we went sent items to BLEND to confirm they received all the content, they said the estimated word count was pretty close.

It just seems strange that now it's very low, like "1" or "5", when it was able to provide more accurate estimates before.

April 24, 2025 at 5:45 pm #16965768

Otto
WPML Supporter since 09/2015

Languages: English (English ) Spanish (Español )

Timezone: America/Argentina/Buenos_Aires (GMT-03:00)

Hello,

You mean the same page with the same fields? Maybe, because of some specific compatibility code, other fields were considered in the word count.

But if they were the same, it's weird.

You may try updating the original content to trigger a new word count.

Best Regards,
Otto

April 29, 2025 at 4:24 pm #16980263

jeremiahH

We sent in a page to test to BLEND and they confirmed the see all the content.