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This topic contains 9 replies, has 0 voices.

Last updated by Lucas Vidal de Andrade 2 days, 17 hours ago.

Assisted by: Lucas Vidal de Andrade.

Author Posts
October 15, 2025 at 6:54 am #17485734

Assaf Katz

Background of the issue:
I have posts duplicated across several languages on my site, hidden link. I am trying to manage canonical tags for these duplicated posts.

Symptoms:
The canonical tags for duplicated content always point to the original language version.

Questions:
How can I bulk detach duplications from the source in WPML?

October 15, 2025 at 10:18 am #17486534

Lucas Vidal de Andrade
WPML Supporter since 11/2023

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Europe/Vienna (GMT+01:00)

Hello there,

In short, WPML does not have a feature to bulk disconnect duplicates from originals. Nonetheless, I can offer some insights and recommendations:

1. First, ensure that detaching the translation actually brings you to your expected result. Detach one post manually, and check if the canonicals behave as you expect.

There are 2 ways to bulk detach the duplicates. Please note that they're not official recommendations from WPML, so please make 100% sure you have a backup before proceeding:

1. Check this custom plugin that does that: hidden link

2. Manually edit the DB to detach duplications: it is possible to remove the duplicate state of a translated product by deleting the '_icl_lang_duplicate_of' meta_key entry in the wp_postmeta table of the database.

I hope this helps.

October 16, 2025 at 6:09 am #17488800

Assaf Katz

Hi!
Thanks for your reply!

I have installed the plugin, but I can not activate it. It says :
"WPML TM Translate Independently has been deactivated. It requires both "WPML Multilingual CMS" and "WPML Translation Management" to be active."

But I can not find a plugin named "WPML Translation Management" anywhere.

Could you please help with that?

October 16, 2025 at 10:20 am #17489641

Lucas Vidal de Andrade
WPML Supporter since 11/2023

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Europe/Vienna (GMT+01:00)

In this case, the plugin is not supported anymore, unfortunately. The other option is to manually detach via DB.

Again, please note that WPML does not offer this feature and that the solutions are not supported.

October 22, 2025 at 7:26 am #17505629

Assaf Katz

Thanks! The DB alteration worked perfectly.
I have another similar issue: all taxonomy pages' canonical tags point to the default-language taxonomy page. How can I fix that?
Thanks!

October 22, 2025 at 1:39 pm #17508545

Lucas Vidal de Andrade
WPML Supporter since 11/2023

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Europe/Vienna (GMT+01:00)

Please send me an example of such page, as well as a screenshot that shows precisely what you are referring to. I want to check it myself, in more detail.

October 23, 2025 at 1:37 pm #17512687

Assaf Katz

No problem.

Here is the original taxonomy term page:
hidden link

Here is the translated taxonomy term's page:
hidden link

As you can see, the translated page's canonical tag points to the original language, which is bad for our SEO.

Cheers.

October 23, 2025 at 3:32 pm #17513185

Lucas Vidal de Andrade
WPML Supporter since 11/2023

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Europe/Vienna (GMT+01:00)

Thanks for sharing.

This depends on which SEO plugin you are using. Since you haven't shared your debug information, I can't offer a more detailed answer. Please share it, as explained here:

https://wpml.org/faq/provide-debug-information-faster-support/

There's a field to insert it. ⚠️ PLEASE DO NOT POST IT DIRECTLY IN THE FORUM, AS A MESSAGE.

October 30, 2025 at 6:22 am #17531125

Assaf Katz

There it is.
Thanks

October 30, 2025 at 12:42 pm #17532655

Lucas Vidal de Andrade
WPML Supporter since 11/2023

Languages: English (English )

Timezone: Europe/Vienna (GMT+01:00)

Thank you.

I checked Yoast's documentation, and it seems that this can be done from within the taxonomy editor, directly.

Visit the taxonomy editor in the desired language (you can change the admin language by clicking on the flag, on the top bar), and set the canonical directly. More details:

hidden link

Please note that this is Yoast feature, not a WPML one, so I cannot totally ensure how the process works.