Problem: The client's website has pages translated into Chinese, but untranslated pages are incorrectly showing a URL with the Chinese language code (e.g., domain.com/zh-hant/postname) instead of remaining in the default English URL (e.g., domain.com/postname). This issue is believed to be harming SEO. Solution: If you're experiencing this issue, we recommend checking your WPML settings. You might have selected the Translatable - use translation if available or fallback to default language option for Posts and Pages in WPML>>Settings>>Post Types Translation. To resolve this, switch to the Translatable - only show translated items option after performing a site backup. This change should ensure that untranslated pages retain the default language URL. For more detailed guidance, please refer to our documentation on displaying untranslated content: Displaying Untranslated Content on Pages in Secondary Languages.
If this solution does not apply to your case, or if it seems outdated, we highly recommend checking related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have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. Should you need further assistance, please do not hesitate to open a new support ticket at WPML support forum.
Problem: The client needs help translating and syncing menus from English to Chinese, where the menus in Chinese are different from the default English language but still need to sync with their respective pages/posts. Solution: We recommend translating the menu manually since automatic syncing only replicates the exact same items across different languages. If you need distinct items in the Chinese menu, manual translation is necessary. You can follow the steps outlined in our documentation on fully custom menu creation.
If this solution does not apply to your case, or if it seems outdated, please check the related known issues at https://wpml.org/known-issues/, verify the version of the permanent fix, and confirm that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. We highly recommend opening a new support ticket if further assistance is needed. You can do so at WPML support forum.
Problem: The client needed to change the language code for Chinese(Simplified) from "Zh-hans" to "zh", noting that there were no translated pages or posts in Chinese(Simplified). Solution: We informed the client that it is not possible to edit the language code of default languages. Instead, we recommended adding a new custom language for Chinese(Simplified) with the desired custom language code "zh". Since the client mentioned there was no content in Chinese(Simplified), they could duplicate the existing "Zh-hans" content to the new custom language "zh". We provided a link to our documentation for further guidance on how to assign or change language codes to existing content: https://wpml.org/faq/how-can-i-assign-or-change-language-code-to-existing-content/
Please note that this solution might be irrelevant if it's outdated or not applicable to your case. If you find that this solution does not solve your issue, 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 you still need assistance, please do not hesitate to open a new support ticket with us.
Problem: The client was experiencing an issue where category slugs were automatically translating to Chinese instead of remaining in English, the default language. They wanted all page/post/category slugs to be the same as the default language.
Solution: First, we suggested that the client make a minor change to the original language of a page and then update the translation to see if the slug would correct itself. If this did not work, we offered to investigate further by requesting temporary access to the site.
Upon further investigation, we found that WordPress requires unique slugs for each language, which is why WPML adds a language code at the end of the slug to make it unique. To display the same slug in other languages, the client can quickly edit the slug of the category by switching to the preferred language from the Top Bar. We provided a video guide for this process: https://www.awesomescreenshot.com/video/14386542?key=c0348ab1e654dbacefff878c6178904e.
For title slugs translated via ATE, the client can copy the same value from the English field to share it with the translation.
Please note that this solution might be irrelevant if it's outdated or not applicable to your case. If you're still experiencing issues, 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 necessary, please open a new support ticket in the WPML support forum: https://wpml.org/forums/forum/english-support/.
Problem: The client was having difficulty with the WPML language switcher not displaying all languages and redirecting to the homepage instead of the translated page when switching languages.
Solution: Step 1: We advised the client to check if the translation for the specific page was available. If not, the language switcher might skip the missing translation. Step 2: To change this behavior, we instructed the client to navigate to WPML -> Languages -> Language switcher options and set 'How to handle languages without translation' to 'Link to home of language for missing translations'.
Step 3: If the client wants the language switcher to redirect to the main language when a translation is not available for a specific post type, they should: - Go to WPML -> Settings -> Post Types Translation - Set the post type (e.g., Pages, Posts, Products) to 'Translatable - use translation if available or fallback to default language'.
This configuration will redirect users to the main language version of the post type if a translation is not available, and will serve the translated version normally once it is available.
If the solution provided here is not relevant due to being outdated or not applicable to your case, we recommend opening a new support ticket. We also highly recommend checking related known issues, verifying the version of the permanent fix, and confirming that you have installed the latest versions of themes and plugins. If further assistance is needed, please contact us in the WPML support forum.
