Weglot reveals a new technical feature for creating multilingual websites : the sub-directory (or sub-folder). Previously, Weglot only offered the capability to translate (SEO friendly) your website through the use of subdomains.
A quick reminder about the difference subdomains vs subdirectories.
- Subdomain: fr.yoursite.com
- Subdirectory: www.yoursite.com/fr
Subdirectories are the preferred option for SEO because all SEO juice is channeled directly to your main domain rather than being shared with a subdomain. The good news is that it is now possible to automatically translate your Webflow website with Weglot, which will create a subdirectory for each translated page! We have integrated it into our Webflow site, so here’s what you need to know.
An SEO-optimized multilingual translation
Subdomain or subdirectory for an SEO-optimized multilingual site? This question is a hot topic on forums and blogs. I will share some insights from my readings ...
However, after reviewing this list (in part), I believe that subdirectories are the best option for optimizing the international SEO of a multilingual site.
How is the content translated with Weglot?
Content is automatically translated by Weglot for each language. However, you can customize this translation using the manual translation function (to modify words/terms/pages on your site). How? Manually from the editor on your Weglot account dashboard, without installing any plugins.
The perfect solution for translating your website?
Pros:
- Simple and quick to set up
- Automatic translation
- SEO optimized
- A wide choice of languages
- Easily manage your custom translations from the dashboard
Cons:
- The sitemap does not automatically generate with Webflow (there might be a plugin if you are using WordPress)
However... Google states that when a website is multilingual, a single technical setup is sufficient. Sitemap or ahref tag, and Weglot automatically creates ahref tags. Therefore, your site meets Google’s expectations.
- Its price: the solution is relatively expensive (URL translation starts from the paid plan at $2,000/year)
How to integrate it into your site?
If you are using Webflow, you can do this without a plugin by integrating a small piece of javascript code into the custom code of your Webflow project.
Step-by-step method (If you haven't created your Weglot account yet, follow this tutorial first to implement Weglot in Webflow)
Regarding the beta subdirectory, here are the instructions:
- First, go to the page https://dashboard.weglot.com/settings/setup/ and click on "Enable subdomains"
- You should arrive on a new page with the current subdomain configuration. Here, simply add "&betasubdir=true" at the end of the URL (For example: https://(...)tegration=true&betasubdir=true)
- Then refresh the page, and you should be able to choose between subdomains and subdirectories
- Select subdirectories and follow the various steps.
⚠️ Important: You will need to add two new entries in your domain's DNS, one of which involves creating a CNAME field - www -. If you are using Webflow to host your site, this means that you will need to remove the CNAME proxy.ssl webflow, as only one CNAME field is accepted by DNS hosts. We did this, and it hasn’t caused any technical issues on our website.
Best practices for integrating Weglot subdirectory into your Webflow site
- Remove hreflang tags from the custom code as they are automatically added by Weglot in the "subdirectory" version
- Do not enable Weglot's "auto-enable switch" feature, as it causes crawl issues for Google. Additionally, Google recommends allowing users freedom of choice and never forcing a redirection
- Set up a global canonical URL in the advanced settings of Webflow, which will be dynamically updated by Weglot
How to check if my site is properly set up for multilingual SEO?
Two tools can help you ensure that the installation was successful.
- Merkle hreflang Tags Testing Tool
- Weglot hreflang checker
Here’s a screenshot indicating that your installation was successful, with green checks and appropriate language tagging across all subdirectories. In case of an error, the tool will inform you with a red cross and an error message.
Conclusion
This new subdirectory feature works very well and is optimized for SEO. The content is automatically translated, but can also be edited manually from the Weglot interface. From a technical standpoint, Google bots correctly identify the hreflang tags and the canonical content. It is a great enhancement of the website translation tool offered by Weglot, which you can test directly by clicking the button with the flag on our site.
