This thread is resolved. Here is a description of the problem and solution.
Problem: The client needs to revise and adapt their website content from English (UK) to English (US) and make the revised content visible as the default language while keeping the old content visible until it's revised. They are looking for a workflow that allows for a phased transition. Solution: We recommend creating a new custom language and setting it as hidden from the front end. You can work on this language and send each page or string for translation. Once the revision is complete, you can change the default language of the website and hide the old English language. This method helps minimize issues with SEO and user experience during the transition. For more details on setting up and hiding languages, you can visit:
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Background of the issue:
I am working on a site under development where our customer wants to change the default language from EN_UK to EN_US. We plan to treat this as a translation project, gradually making the new language visible while keeping the old language visible for certain parts of the website.
Symptoms:
No specific issue or error message mentioned.
Questions:
Could you help us plan the best workflow for changing the default language from EN_UK to EN_US?
What are the possibilities and limitations we might encounter during this phased language transition?
Languages: English (English )Spanish (Español )German (Deutsch )
Timezone: America/Lima (GMT-05:00)
Hello,
You can go to WPML > Languages > Edit language and set the default locale for English.
By default, in WordPress, this locale is set to EN_US which means that it will download language files using this language preference.
You can further upload a custom flag for USA. You can find such a flag on the server inside the folder /wp-content/plugins/sitepress-multilingual-cms/res/flags.
Thank you for the information. However, this isn't exactly what our issue is.
Our query is more about the best workflow for a revision task to avoid issues.
Our customer has their website in EN (British) and they need us to revise and adapt their content for EN_US. What we want to be able to do is work on their texts, and then for them to be able to make the 'new language' visible and hide the 'old language' because it is not the right variant. This is not to do with the language code, it is because the text genuinely needs to be adapted for a new audience.
However, this is a project that needs to be done in phases.
We want them to be able to send us the files for revision, us send them back, the customer make them visible as the default, but leave the other URL that have not been revised still visble on the website in the original default language.
We don't know if this is possible, or if you can suggest another, less complex way of carrying out this kind of revision task.
The best approach would be to create a new custom language, and set it as hidden from the front end. Then work on it and send each page/string for translation.
Once done, change the default language of the website, and hide other (old EN language).
Thanks for the info, however, my query really is if there is any way that we can do this in phases and make the revised content the only ivisble content little by little or if we can only do this once it is all done, as would seem to be the case from your previous answer.
Many thanks!
thanks, I am afraid the only correct way I can think of for your case would be as advised above, with translating pages and hiding or not hiding languages, as you prefer.
Thanks, but could you just specify exactly, is it possible to do this page by page (hiding or not hiding) or only with the whole website?
That is what I've been trying to get an answer to. Can this be done little by little, showing different languages for different pages, or can we only change the default language and hide the other one for the whole site once everything is finished?
you can set pages to draft and that way hides them from front end, but not sure if that would make sense since you would not have a page in the default language but only in 2nd language. And then that could cause an issue with Google, as you would start having missing pages / link not working etc, and then once you change the default language again changes to your SEO structure.
So that is the reason why I suggested the above first method to minimize any issue for Google and visitors.
You can do all of this work on the staging site and once done publish it to production, I would not advise doing the work on a production website.
