This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.
Problem: The client is experiencing redirect loops and chains specifically in the Russian version of their site, affecting category pages. These issues are suspected to be caused by automatically generated category slugs by WPML, leading to conflicting URLs. Solution: 1. Check WPML's Browser Language Redirect Settings: Disable automatic browser language redirection temporarily to see if it resolves the issue. 2. Review Russian Category Slugs: Ensure that the slugs for Russian categories are unique and do not conflict with existing ones. Check the trash for any previously deleted categories that might still be holding a slug. 3. General Troubleshooting for Redirects: Increase the WordPress memory limit by adding
define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '256M');
to the wp-config.php file. Update all plugins and themes to their latest versions and clear all caches. If these steps do not resolve the redirect loops, or if the solution seems outdated or not applicable to your case, we highly recommend checking related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. If issues persist, please open a new support ticket at WPML support forum.
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Background of the issue:
I am trying to fix a large number of redirect chains and redirect loops occurring only in the Russian version of our site (benoit-partners.com/ru). These redirect loops appear mainly on category pages translated into Russian. It looks like some category slugs may have been generated automatically by WPML translation, which could have created conflicting URLs and multiple redirection patterns. We would like to understand what is causing these redirect loops and how to correctly configure the Russian categories without affecting the other languages (French, English, German, Italian, Thai).
Symptoms:
When our SEO tool crawls the Russian categories, it cannot reach the final URLs and reports 'redirect loop' or 'impossible to reach the final URL.'
Questions:
What is causing the redirect loops in the Russian category pages?
How can we correctly configure the Russian categories without affecting other languages?
Hello,
My name is Carlos, and I will continue working on this ticket.
To unlink two categories, you must make sure that the category in the original language is not translated, because the categories in the secondary languages can only link to categories in the original language if these categories in the original language are not translated.
A common workaround is to delete the incorrectly linked category and then link the category in the secondary language to the one in the original language that is not translated.
Please let me know if you need further assistance.
Thanks for your explanation.
We understand the workaround, but in our case we really prefer not to delete any category, because it could break SEO, indexed URLs, and internal structure.
Our issue is actually this:
➡️ The Russian category cannot be opened at all.
When we try to access the category, it immediately creates a redirect loop (screenshot attached). Because of this, we cannot access the category page, we cannot unlink it, and we cannot modify anything.
So the problem is not only the incorrect linkage — the real issue is that the category page itself is unreachable.
We would like to fix the translation link without deleting anything and without breaking the existing categories.
Could you tell us how we can:
Remove or fix the wrong translation link,
Without deleting categories,
Even though the Russian category page redirects endlessly?
1.- Please share the URL of one of the categories where the redirection can be seen
2.- I kindly ask you to share the access credentials to the site in your next message, which I have set private. This way, I will be able to reproduce the issue and check the configuration.
Please confirm you have created a full site backup that you can restore if necessary.
Hi Alice,
Thank you very much for sharing the information requested
The cause of the issue is that the slug matches another slug on the site that I couldn't find, but as a workaround I added -2 to the category slug and now you can correctly see it in hidden link
