Background of the issue:
I am trying to get the hreflang link to the correct URL. This is a problem on all pages on convini.de and convini.com. Only the Swedish seems to link to the wrong domain. The slugs seem to be correct but the domain is wrong (.de and .com instead of .se). I submitted a ticket before but was asked to install the WPML SEO addon which I have. I also made sure to update all the plugins to the latest version. Link to a page where the issue can be seen: hidden link. I expected to see:
Symptoms:
Instead, I got:
Questions:
Why is the hreflang link pointing to the wrong domain?
How can I ensure the hreflang links point to the correct domain?
Thanks for contacting us. I can see the issue while inspecting your Website here hidden link as shown in the attached screenshot.
I will need to closely examine your website. Therefore, I will require temporary access (WP-Admin and FTP) to a test site where the problem has been replicated, if possible. This will enable me to provide better assistance and determine if any configurations need to be modified.
Please note that it is important to have a backup for security purposes and to prevent any potential data loss. You can use the UpdraftPlus plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/updraftplus/) to fulfill your backup requirements.
Your upcoming reply will be treated with confidentiality and will only be visible to you and me.
✙ To resolve the issue, I may need your consent to deactivate and reactivate plugins and the theme, as well as make configuration changes on the site if necessary. This emphasizes the significance of having a backup.
I do not think I can replicate the problem on a staging site since the problem is with the dirrefent domains. But I can give you access to a staging site and the production live site if it's possbile for you to only make changes on the live site during night time in Sweden. That would be between 23:00 - 06:00 CET time (which seems to be the morning for you). In that case you can use the staging site for testing if you want (and also the live site to see how it works).
Let me know if thats fine (and when you're planning to debug) and I make sure to do give you access and make a backup before, and if anything goes wrong on the live site I can restore the backup in the next morning before we get any traffic.
Thanks for your reply. You're right, we cannot test this on the staging site since it's related to the domain name.
However, I can work on your production site at your preferred time. Keep in mind that I would need to deactivate plugins and switch themes for troubleshooting which might break the live site. (which I doubt would happen because of the plugins that you're using)
If you agree to proceed, please share your credentials in the private reply option that I've enabled for you.
Apologies for missing the troubleshooting window. I’ll proceed by checking the WPML settings instead. Upon reviewing your language settings, I noticed some discrepancies. Could you clarify why the language code, hreflangs, and language mapping appear to be inconsistent? I’ve attached a screenshot for your reference.
Specifically:
- The English language code is assigned the "a" hreflang points to en and it maps to the English Language.
- The Swedish language code is set to "en" and its hreflang points to sv and it maps to the English Language and not the Swedish Language.
These inconsistencies could potentially cause issues. Could you please verify these settings accordingly? Let me know if you need assistance!
Hm thats interesting. I do not see the same settings as you when I look at the same view. (wpml > languages > edit languages). I do not see any inconsistencies from my end (see image). No settings has been changed recently. I even logged in to your account and changes profile language settings to english, but still see the same settings as I did. How come you seeing different from me?
Please feel free to use the same time-window tonight to look into it further.
Not sure what's happening as it seems to show up correctly now. I've noticed a new issue, the "A different domain per language" settings shows up "not valid" as shown in the attached screenshot. Could you recheck the domain DNS settings again please?
Ok, it haven't showed up as invalid from my view. We have pointed our domains separetly to the same IP. We used that solution after talking to our hosting flywheel, but it's possbile there is another way of doing it.
We will look into the oppurtunity to set the domains .de and .com as parked/alias to convini.se at the domain provider instead, if you think that would be a better solution?
or something missconfigured.
Also as far as I can see the main site is hidden link, while the others are set without www infront - which may be a problem as well.
I've checked your wp-config.php file and indeed I'm able to see the "Domain Configuration" section that uses similar settings. You need to check with your hosting provider and ask them about this.
I have been in contact with our hosting provider and this is the answer I got:
"Hm. There is no entry within the config entered as the one above on our end. Or any coding entry for that matter within the wp-config. If they have any recommendations on what/how we can change this, we'd be happy to take another look or add any coding to the wp-config file."
Could you be more specific regarding any recomendations in the we-config file? If you do not see any further recomendations we might have to try swith to only using www on all domains if you belive that could help?
I've shared your feedback with our 2nd Tier Support. While waiting for their response, please try switching to www. on all domains you mentioned as a test and see if everything works correctly.
Thank you for your patience. Our second-tier support team has asked me to conduct a conflict test on your website. This involves temporarily deactivating all third-party plugins except for WPML plugins to see if this resolves the issue.
If the issue persists, our second-tier support will investigate further and perform more detailed troubleshooting on the site.
May I have your permission to proceed with this conflict test? I can do this around 23:00 - 06:00 CET time
