OkayCMS Multilingual Setup

OkayCMS multilingual setup

A second language in a store is not just translation. Most of the work goes into URL structure and into making sure search engines do not treat the language versions as duplicates.

What is included

• enabling and configuring languages in the system;
• URL structure for the language versions;
• translated page slugs rather than transliteration;
• hreflang tags with reciprocal links between every version;
• canonical URLs, so the versions do not compete with each other;
• a language switcher that leads to the same page, not to the home page;
• translation of the store interface.

What is not included

Content translation — product names, descriptions, categories. I configure the mechanism; the copy is translated by you or a translator. But it is guaranteed to land in the right fields of the right language versions.

The typical mistake

A language switched on "as is": the interface is translated, the products are not, pages are reachable at several addresses, and duplicates sit in search results. Untangling that later costs more than configuring it properly at the start.

The second common problem is currency tied to language. They are different things, and the relationship needs thinking through: a foreign language does not always mean a different currency.