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I have a question I'd love some feedback on from the international community regarding. I am not working up a specific site, but would like to be better able to recommend plugins for users attempting to make a multi lingual site. I am aware of qTranslate and WPML. I've used them both for clients in the past. I was not super impressed with either of them because of the frustration of dealing with widgets, headers, and other issues.
I recently came across this plugin (someone in support asked about it)
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/multilingual-press/
The idea seems great. It uses multisite to link posts and pages together. Since each language is given it's own site they could each have a custom header and unique home page widgets. This means the slider, for example, would be in the correct language. You could even alter key parts to better account for slight cultural differences the languages might imply so your users are better suited. The whole thing sounds great ...
But I'm wondering if it works as well as it sounds in practice? Has anyone used this plugin and if so does it have any issues I should be aware of before recommending it?
It works okay-ish. None of the current solutions out there are a perfect match. The quickest one out there to set up is WPML and for most folks that would work best. For quite a few clients we have actually steered away from having an automated solution and worked with a multi-site set up where people would have to manually upload / edit the content. That may sound like extra work, but in reality it's not too bad plus is scales extremely well (which is something none of the other solutions do really well).
Translate the Genesis Framework with the Genesis Translations plugin.
I can only emphasize what Remkus said: for new projects using more than 1 language I will only setup Multisite installs. That's the solution I recommend to all clients since spring of this year. WPML is a solution for not so "techie" users but it is likely to happen they complain in the long run and will find themselves locked in...
The "Multilingual Press" plugin is an option - I consider it some helper tool but in the end it's not needed. Multisite on its own is the native best solution. Not only for scaling reasons.
--Dave 🙂
Hello,
I am dealing with a similar problem. I would like to translate my blog into three languages. However I owuld also like to translate the header and menu ( which is apparently not possible with plugins I have been told ). I am new to this and this is actually the first child theme that I am trying to customize.
Can you maybe please tell me how to set up a multisite and/or are there any good tutorials on the net/books that I could read?
Thank you very much for your help!!
Kathi
Hello,
I am in a similar situation to Kathi and not "techie" at all. Â I have the genesis/prose combination and want to set up a French version of an English language site. Â Multisite installs seems to be the recommended path. Â But what and how does one achieve this? Â Where is the help/info available to do this?
Thanks for your help.
Malachy
Multisite is actually very easy to setup. There are some plugins to facilitate it but you don't really need them
By the way, Remkus and Decker, thank you both very much for your feedback. I very highly value your thoughts and had recommended several times that users go with multisite previously, I just wondered if this plugin might make a helpful bridge for users.
Sorry for the late reply!
Yes the first mentioned plugin by you works like an "more comfort for the admin/ editor & user" plugin. It doesn't add overhead that locks you in later but rather adds some additions to the admin workflow. And for the frontend it mostly adds the language switcher - similar to that from WPML.
A similar plugin compared to "Multilingual Press" is this one, "Multisite Language Switcher" which is a little more basic/simple but has a solid switch as well as some other basic settings on a per site basis: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/multisite-language-switcher/
WPML itself is a great concept and it works -- but it adds lots of overhead and needs lots of additional plugins if you're working with WooCommerce, EDD, BuddyPress and so. The internal workflow can also be complicated for editors because of the many additions on the edit screens. Also for more than 2 languages and lots of pages and/or posts it may lead out of order sometimes...
At first sight, Multisite may look like it's "too much" for that task but if you already worked with multilingual sites then it's the currently best option overall, especially when you just keep all with WordPress default stuff 🙂
Update - 1 year later :
I would be interested to know what solutions all of you used in the past year & what you now recommend 1 year later. Any good/bad experience using WPML or Multisite ? Other new alternative ?
I will need to translate a site for a customer (pretty basic business site, 9 static pages, no blog) & I have to decide between WPML & Multisite. To me WPML seems quick & easy, but apparently reduce site speed a little, while Multisite looks a little overkill (2 different site to update.. etc).
Is one option better than the other in SEO point of view ?
I'm also looking for advice for my first multilingual site. I'm not sure even where to start or how to estimate for my proposal to the client. I've never used Multisite - does that basically create a mirror of the site in a different language?
I think I'll only need the content to be multilingual, not any of the admin/dashboard area.
Loudness, what have you found in your research?
Thanks!
After reading a lot on that, I think the Multisite is a better solution. (I'm still new to that, correct me if I'm wrong)
- Faster (smaller DB, less queries) -> Very important for me (& google)
- Not plugin dependent, but you also have to use a plugin like Multisite Language Switcher (at least the content is not managed by the plugin)
- Easier to clean if we have to remove a language (this could also be the case with WPML, but not qTranslate apparently)
- You can have different content on both language if required.
- Not a huge factor for me, but WPMU is free, while WPML is a paid pluginI'm just not sure about the perfect way to fully "duplicate" the site & add it on the multisite network. Any tips on that ?
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