Migrating from Another Plugin

Switching to Omnalingo is straightforward, with one thing to know up front: Omnalingo generates fresh translations rather than importing your old plugin’s database.

Why a fresh start is recommended

Other plugins store translations in incompatible formats, and those translations were made from a snapshot of your content at the time. Importing them risks carrying over stale text — wording that has since changed — or translations made with different context. A fresh scan reflects what your site actually says today, and with AI translation you get a complete first pass quickly, ready to refine in the Visual Editor.

There’s no automated import, but you can migrate by hand if you prefer — paste your existing translation into each text block in the Visual Editor. For most sites AI is faster, unless you put significant effort into your previous translations and want to carry them over exactly.

Before you start

Migrate on a staging copy first if you can, and take a backup either way. Your old plugin has to be switched off before Omnalingo is switched on, so on a live site your translated pages are unavailable until Omnalingo has translated them. On a staging copy you can work through every step, check the result, and then repeat it on the live site in one short session.

Don't run both plugins at the same time

Deactivate your old translation plugin before you activate Omnalingo. Two translation plugins both try to decide which language a page is in and how its URLs look, and they can interfere with each other.

Step by step

1. Set aside your old translated posts — WPML and Polylang only. Do this while the old plugin is still active, so you can still tell the copies apart. See WPML and Polylang below.

2. Deactivate your old plugin and all of its add-ons. For WPML that includes String Translation, Media Translation, and its SEO and form add-ons. Deactivate, don’t delete — its data stays available for reference until you remove it.

3. Install and activate Omnalingo and run the setup wizard. It walks you through your languages and your free key.

4. Add the same languages you had before. Check the language slugs (the de in /de/about/) under Settings → General → Language Settings. If your old URLs used a different slug for a language, change Omnalingo’s to match, so those links keep working (see Keeping your old links working).

5. Check which content gets translated under Settings → General → Sitemap Content Settings. The recommended setting covers the content your visitors see, including content types your theme and plugins add.

6. Translate. Turn on Auto Translate (per page, or Enable Auto translate for all) to generate translations across the site, or work page by page in the Visual Editor.

7. Review the important pages — homepage, key landing pages, product descriptions — in the Visual Editor, and check your translated pages in a browser.

8. Redirect old URLs that changed (see Keeping your old links working).

9. Clear your cache so visitors get the new translations.

10. Delete the old plugin once you’re happy, and remove the translated posts you set aside in step 1.

Keeping your old links working

Omnalingo puts each language in its own folder of your site: /de/about/, /fr/about/. On sites using WordPress’s “Plain” permalinks it uses a parameter instead: ?lang=de. It does not redirect URLs in other formats, so check which format your old plugin used:

• Language folders (/de/about/) — these keep working as long as each language’s slug matches the one your old plugin used. WPML, for example, uses zh-hans for Simplified Chinese, where Omnalingo’s default is zh. Change the slug in Omnalingo to match.
• A ?lang= parameter on a site with pretty permalinks (/about/?lang=de) — these no longer lead to the translation, because Omnalingo uses language folders on such sites. Set up 301 redirects from the old addresses to the new ones, with a redirect plugin or your server’s configuration, so search rankings and links carry over.
• Separate domains or subdomains per language (de.example.com) — Omnalingo serves every language from your main domain, so redirect each language domain to its folder.

Per-plugin notes

WPML and Polylang

Both create real duplicate WordPress posts for each translated language. Omnalingo uses language folders instead and never duplicates posts.

Deal with those copies before you deactivate the old plugin. Once it’s off, they become ordinary published posts, and Omnalingo would treat them as content in your main language: it would scan them, list them in your sitemap and translate them again. While WPML or Polylang is still active, filter your post and page lists by language and switch the translated copies to Draft. Omnalingo only includes published content by default, so drafts stay out of the way, and you can still copy text from them by hand. Delete them once your migration is finished, to avoid duplicate content in search engines.

For URLs, see Keeping your old links working — both plugins can be set up with language folders, a ?lang= parameter, or separate domains.

TranslatePress

Uses language folders much like Omnalingo (/de/about/). After switching, confirm your language URLs resolve — matching the slugs if they differ — and update any hardcoded internal links. Omnalingo outputs hreflang automatically once your languages are set.

Weglot

Serves translations through a proxy/CDN, so its translated URLs stop working once you remove its DNS/configuration. Before switching, update internal links that point to Weglot-style URLs and consider redirects from any external backlinks to the new Omnalingo URLs. Clear your CDN cache afterward.