How It Works

Omnalingo separates translation work into three distinct phases — all admin-initiated — followed by a fourth phase that runs automatically whenever a visitor loads a translated page. Understanding these phases helps you know what to do when something needs updating and why translated pages load just as fast as your original pages.

Phase 1: Gather

Before Omnalingo can translate anything, it needs to know what exists on your site.

When you click Gather Content, Omnalingo reads your WordPress site’s structure and builds an internal list of every URL that should be translated. This includes:

• Pages and posts
• Custom post type entries (portfolio items, events, courses, etc.)
• Product pages (WooCommerce)
• Category and tag archives
• Any other content types you have enabled in settings

This list is called your content index. You can see it in the dashboard — each URL is listed with its title, type, and current status. You control which content types are included by adjusting the settings before you gather.

Gathering reads your database — it does not open any pages in a browser. It typically finishes in seconds for small sites and a few minutes for large stores with thousands of products.

Phase 2: Scan

With the content index built, Omnalingo needs to read the actual text on each page.

When you click Scan Content, Omnalingo opens each URL in your content index and reads the fully rendered page — exactly what a visitor would see. It extracts every piece of visible text:

• Headings, paragraphs, and body text
• Button labels and form placeholders
• Navigation menu items
• Widget content
• Strings that come from your theme and plugins (like “Add to cart” or “Search”)
• Image alt text and other accessibility attributes

All of these strings are saved to your database and deduplicated — if the same text appears on 50 pages (a site-wide footer, for example), it is stored once and translated once.

At the end of scanning, the dashboard shows you the total word count across your site. On the Free plan, this tells you how much of your 2,000-word AI quota a translation run will use. On Pro, word counts are informational — there is no per-word billing, and language packs cover far more than most sites ever produce.

Keep your browser tab open while scanning runs. The scan pauses if you close the tab and resumes when you come back.

Phase 3: Translate

With your strings saved, you are ready to translate.

When you click Start Translation (or translate individual pages through the visual editor), Omnalingo sends your strings to its cloud service. An AI model generates the translations, applying any glossary rules you have set and using any AI context you have configured (your business type, tone of voice, target audience). Translations are sent back and stored in your database immediately as they arrive.

Manual edits are always preserved. If you edit a translation by hand — either in the visual editor or by typing directly into a string — that edit is locked in permanently. Bulk AI translation never overwrites strings that have been manually edited.

Retrying is safe. If a translation run is interrupted, re-running it only sends the strings that still lack translations. Strings that were already translated successfully are not re-sent.

Serving Translated Pages (Automatic)

Once translations are stored, this phase runs automatically — you do not trigger it manually.

When a visitor requests a translated URL (for example, /fr/about/), Omnalingo detects the language prefix and lets WordPress render the page normally in your original language. Then, before the page is sent to the visitor’s browser, Omnalingo swaps each string with its stored translation.

The visitor sees a fully translated page. The entire swap happens in milliseconds using a simple database read — there are no API calls, no content discovery, no writing to the database. Your original-language pages are completely unaffected.

Because translated pages are served as regular HTML, they work with any page caching plugin. A cached translated page has zero PHP execution overhead for every visitor after the first.

What Triggers a Re-Translation

Omnalingo does not automatically re-scan or re-translate when you update a page. You control when to run each phase. As a general rule:

• After adding new pages or posts: Run Gather → Scan → Translate.
• After editing existing content: Run Scan → Translate (no need to re-gather if you haven’t added new URLs).
• After changing glossary terms or AI context: Re-translate the affected strings to pick up the new settings.

Summary

Phase	Triggered by	What it does
Gather	You (click “Gather Content”)	Builds a list of all URLs to translate
Scan	You (click “Scan Content”)	Opens each URL and extracts all visible text
Translate	You (click “Start Translation”)	Sends strings to AI, stores translations
Serve	Automatic (visitor request)	Swaps stored translations into the page before delivery