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[Closed] WPML Translation Editor forces pages into managed state causing incorrect hreflang (Elementor + Yoas...

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This topic contains 3 replies, has 0 voices.

Last updated by Christopher Amirian 4 months, 2 weeks ago.

Assisted by: Christopher Amirian.

Author Posts
December 25, 2025 at 8:57 am #17687588

homeP

Hello WPML Support Team,

I’m experiencing a serious issue with WPML that affects SEO and hreflang generation on a WordPress site using Elementor + Yoast SEO.

Environment

WordPress (latest)

WPML Multilingual CMS (latest)

Elementor

Yoast SEO

Languages: English (default) + German

URL structure: /en/ and /de/

Problem description

Pages that were previously translated using the WPML Translation Editor remain internally marked as “Translation Editor managed”.

Even after:

Turning Translate Everything Automatically = OFF

Not using automatic translation anymore

Editing pages manually with Elementor

WPML still treats these pages as translation-managed and shows this warning:

“Edits you’re about to make will be lost.
You are about to edit this translation using the standard WordPress editor.”

Technical impact

Because of this state:

WPML generates incorrect hreflang values

Subpages output hreflang pointing to the homepage (/en/ or /de/)

Google indexes mostly English pages

German pages are ignored or treated as duplicates

Example (wrong output):

hreflang="de" → hidden link

hreflang="en" → hidden link

Expected output:

hreflang should point to the corresponding translated subpage

Current workaround (not acceptable)

The only way to fix this is manually, page by page, per language:

Open page

Set “This is a translation of” → -- None --

Save

Repeat for the other language

Re-link pages manually

This is extremely time-consuming and error-prone on existing sites.

Core issue

There is no global or bulk option to:

Convert existing Translation Editor–managed pages into normal WordPress pages

Or fully detach them from the Translation Editor system

This creates long-term SEO issues and makes WPML unsafe for Elementor-based, SEO-critical websites.

Expected solution

One of the following:

A global/bulk option to convert Translation Editor–managed pages into normal pages

A repair / reset tool to fix translation relationships and hreflang output

Clear documentation acknowledging this limitation and its SEO impact

This is not a configuration mistake — it’s a structural WPML behavior that causes incorrect hreflang output even when automatic translation is disabled.

Please advise how this can be resolved properly without manual page-by-page intervention.

Best regards
December 25, 2025 at 9:20 am #17687595

Christopher Amirian
WPML Supporter since 07/2020

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Asia/Yerevan (GMT+04:00)

Hi,

Welcome to WPML support.

There are two points before going for the answer:

1) Disconnecting Translations

That is a big no-no. It will sever the connection between the pages in the languages and will cause inconsistencies when you use WPML. So the solution is not that and let's for now abandon such a solution, by the way ,there is no bulk option for that.

2) Extra unnecessary WPML plugins installed on your website.

Your website contains unnecessary extra WPML plugins that you do not need and might have a negative impact. Please deactivate and delete the plugins below:

- Advanced Custom Fields Multilingual
- WPML Multilingual for BuddyPress and BuddyBoss
- WPML All Import
- WPML CMS Navigation
- WPML ElasticPress
- WPML GraphQL
- WPML Sticky Links
- WPForms Multilingual

Finally, the WPML Media translation plugin is for scenarios where you want another image used on the translated page. If you do not need that, you can remove this plugin too.

------------

Now, regarding the HREFLANGS. WPML uses this method to generate the HREFLANGS:

https://wpml.org/documentation/support/adding-hreflang-wordpress/

I checked the homepage of your website, and it contains the expected code for that:

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="<em><u>hidden link</u></em>">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="<em><u>hidden link</u></em>">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="<em><u>hidden link</u></em>">

The code above exactly tells Google that you have another language available for your page.

So WPML does it's job to add the proper code to tell Google that this is not a duplicate and is another language.

Please read the documentation for more detailed information.

Thanks.
December 25, 2025 at 12:34 pm #17687750

homeP

Hello Christopher,

thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, it does not address the actual problem I am facing.

To clarify:

Disconnecting translations
You state that disconnecting translations is a “big no-no”. However, this does not change the fact that pages previously created with the WPML Translation Editor remain internally marked as “translation-managed”, even when automatic translation is disabled and manual editing with Elementor is required.

This state directly causes incorrect hreflang output on subpages, where hreflang points to the homepage instead of the corresponding translated URL. This is not theoretical — it is reproducible.

From an SEO perspective, incorrect hreflang signals are a much more severe issue than resetting translation relationships. Google does not care about WPML’s internal consistency, but about correct canonical and hreflang targets.

Extra WPML plugins
The suggested removal of additional WPML plugins is unrelated to hreflang generation. These plugins do not influence how WPML outputs hreflang tags for pages and therefore do not address the root cause.

Homepage hreflang
The homepage was never the issue. The problem affects subpages, not the homepage. Checking only the homepage hreflang does not validate correct behavior site-wide.

Core unresolved issue

There is currently no supported way to convert existing Translation Editor–managed pages into normal WordPress pages in bulk, or to fully detach them from the Translation Editor system.

As a result:

hreflang output on subpages is incorrect

Google indexes primarily English pages

Manual page-by-page intervention is the only workaround

My question

Can you please confirm one of the following:

Is this a known limitation of WPML when used with Elementor and SEO plugins?

Is there an official, supported way to migrate Translation Editor–managed pages to native pages without manual per-page intervention?

Or should WPML currently be considered unsuitable for SEO-critical Elementor sites once the Translation Editor has been used?

I am looking for a concrete, technically accurate answer to this specific issue.

Best regards
December 25, 2025 at 1:18 pm #17687770

Christopher Amirian
WPML Supporter since 07/2020

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Asia/Yerevan (GMT+04:00)

Hello and thank you for your message.

I will need to have more detailed reproducible example as you mentioned to be able to help here.

You mentioned that there is an internal Translated Managed mode for the translated pages. Are you talking about the fact that you use the advanced translation editor?

If yes, then that is the way WPML works. But if you mean something else please give me an example with maybe a screenshot sho I can check.

I tried an inner page such as services and gain the HREFLANGS are generated as they should and it worked ok:

hidden link

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="<em><u>hidden link</u></em>">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="<em><u>hidden link</u></em>">
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="<em><u>hidden link</u></em>">

So you will need to be more precise and give me an example URL that is not working so I can check the HTML code for that.

Now to answer your questions:

Is this a known limitation of WPML when used with Elementor and SEO plugins?

The confirmed known issues between WPML and Yoast SEO are as follows:
https://wpml.org/plugin/yoast-seo/ (Please check the known issue section)

None of those are related to HREFLANG, so for your scenario, I should say no confirmed known issues.

Is there an official, supported way to migrate Translation Editor–managed pages to native pages without manual per-page intervention?

If you mean, moving a translated page from Advanced Translation Editor to the Native WordPress editor, for already translated ones there is no bulk way.

Or should WPML currently be considered unsuitable for SEO-critical Elementor sites once the Translation Editor has been used?

WPML has compatibility with SEO plugins such as Yoast SEO via WPML SEO plugin which you already have installed. So to answer your question, no WPML is suitable to be used for SEO purposes.

To be able to provide a concrete technical response as you asked for, I will need a concrete reproducible URL or page that has HREFLANG wrong generation or something that I can verify.

I'd be happy to delve more into the issue after your explanations of the steps to see the issue.

P.S. I still need to emphasise that you will encounter issues having those extra WPML plugins activated even if it is not related to this paritcular question.

Thanks.

The topic ‘[Closed] WPML Translation Editor forces pages into managed state causing incorrect hreflang (Elementor + Yoas…’ is closed to new replies.