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Webflow + Weglot replace Subdomain with a different domain

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#1

Hello dear community!

Our website buitenaardig.com is a Webflow + Weglot for Dutch translations. I also have the buitenaardig.nl which is a forward. I regularly get ’ Your connection is not private’ error.

My question:

  • Would it be possible to replace the subdomain used by Weglot (https://nl.buitenaardig.com/) with the domain buitenaardig.nl?
  • How would this affect SEO?

I have a feeling the subdomain is currently not ranking on anything in Holland.

Thank you for taking the time to read and hopefully help me out.

1 Like
#2

Hi @buitenaardig, I’m currently looking for ways to add a translation to potentially 2 different webflow projects (norwegian and swedish). Have you figured it out?

My first thought would be to set up a redirect in webflow from subdomain to a folder /no(instead of domain like in your example).

#3

Not really. I stuck with what Weglot told me. The .com is the main domain and nl.buitenaardig.com is being used for the dutch translation. It works fine to be honest.

1 Like
#4

I will try Weglot out then! thanks!

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#5

@vanpaio Think twice before you use Weglot.

I have used Weglot on a project, and wish I hadn’t. These are the reasons won’t use weglot again:

  • Weglot adds automatic translations on everything. Results have been sub-par for Danish, Norwegian and Swedish translations on my project. All automativc translations have needed to be replaced by manual ones

  • Every time you make changes to an element (e.g. change a single word in a paragraph), the manual translations, for all languages, for that element are replaced by an automatic one. Not good. I haven’t been able to find a version history or other means of backup. This means copy/pasting to word documents: manual work=errors. My client provided the translations from four regional offices, I didin’t feel too comfortable telling them that their work was lost.

  • Sometimes Weglot seems to randomly remove manual translations. Not cool.

  • Documentation is poor. E.g. screenshots of the UI in tutorials aren’t updated when the UI changes. That means confusion and a lot of mails to support.

  • Our writing/design workflow started with Norwegian. Translations for EN, SE, DK were provided later. The root domain, {xyz}.com, was supposed to be in English. That meant we had to replace all the norwegian text in the Webflow prototype with English text at a point. A major pain.

  • Weglot doesn’t reflect the sitemap on your site - old and deleted pages are crowding my lists in Weglot. Which ones should I delete to keep my work space clean? No idea.

All in all, Weglot is too good to be true. Next time, I’ll go for Craft or WP+WPML.

2 Likes
#6

Hey @Alexander_Fjelldal! Thank youfor the advice.

Just during the trial I spoted some of the problems you listed, but the main concerning one was the override of manual translations whenever the original is updated.

Another problem is that you always need to create content in the primary language first, which won’t always be possible.

Just one thing:

I haven’t been able to find a version history or other means of backup. This means copy/pasting to word documents: manual work=errors.

After I updated the original content it replaced my manual translation with a new auto translation, but I could still find my the previous one.

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#7

What a perfect chat, I’m starting on a Norwegian website which is to be translated in to Swedish and Danish as well… Thank you @vanpaio and @Alexander_Fjelldal for listing your experiences, it helps a lot!

The client wants different domains for the sites, so I think I will go for three different sites and manual updates then. They might drift from each other, but I think the client will want that anyway…

@Alexander_Fjelldal You said that your client provided translations, did you find som way of exporting all text on the original website to hand out for them to translate?

#8

No, we copy pasted the whole thing to a google doc. That was then sent to a translation agency, which was surprisingly cheap, accurate and fast. Once the client had approved the texts from translation agency (delivered as word files :grimacing:), we copy pasted the translations into the website.

1 Like