Scientific Methods for Building a Multilingual WordPress Website_Plugins Are Not the Best Choice

Foreign trade enterprise usersbuild a websiteoften consider multilingual websites. The vast majority of multilingual websites are created usingtranslation plugins, such as WPML,Polylang, etc. However, this approachis not user-friendly for website operations，Building a multilingual websiteWhat is the more scientific method? Let Naiba analyze it for you.

Why multilingual plugins are not user-friendly for operations

Previously, Naibabiji sharedWordPress Multilingual Plugin Polylang Usage Tutorial_Foreign Trade Multilingual Website Buildingsuch an article. Indeed,using multilingual plugins like Polylang can instantly turn your website into a multilingual version, and it supports integration with machine translation to reduce translation costs. However,multilingual websites created using this type of plugin have the following drawbacks:

1. Machine translation is not accurate;
2. It cannot achieve 100% translation of the entire website content, such as text in images or hard-coded data in webpage code;
3. The server is fixed in one location, resulting in suboptimal access speeds for users from other countries;
4. Translating too much content can burden the database and affect website speed.

Why are these considered drawbacks? The following analysis will compare and explain when discussing the scientific approach to building multilingual websites.

Scientific methods for building multilingual websites

Using the case from the screenshot above, Naiba will analyze for everyone,which method is the scientific way to build a multilingual website。 A more scientific method for building a multilingual website is，to create a separate website for each language, with the data and database of each language website independently separated. Let's analyze why this approach is more scientific than using multilingual plugins for translation.

Advantages of independently building multilingual websites for different countries

Using independent sites to build a multilingual website offers several functions that translation plugins cannot achieve.

1. Each language website operates independently

How to understand this independent operation? For example, for a Chinese site and a US site, during China's Double Eleven, your website homepage slideshow will definitely feature Double Eleven promotional offers, while the US generally has Black Friday as a shopping festival. So, if you have independent sites, you can separately launch shopping promotions on each website during their respective events. You might say this doesn't matter—running promotions on both sides simultaneously would sell more, right? Well, then how do you handle your website SEO? Which language do you optimize for? Naiba shares from experience, don't hesitate, just build them separately.

2. Optional website server location

If you use a multilingual plugin to translate your website, there is one issue: the server can only be located in the US or China, meaning users from one country will always experience slow access speeds. With independent multilingual websites, you can place the English website on a US server and the Chinese website on a domestic server. You might say, I can useCDN AccelerationCDN, but then you'll encounter a new problem: currently, there is no CDN service provider that offers exceptionally fast access both domestically and internationally.

3. Workload is similar to plugin translation, but the database is smaller

Following the example from the screenshot above, building websites in 6 languages, with all article data multiplied by 6, and 6 independent databases, definitely results in different performance. Moreover, if products are involved, it also includes search functionality; high search volumes can put significant pressure on the website database.Why is the workload said to be the same as with plugin translation?The workflow of translation plugins is: for one article, if you want to translate it into several languages, you need to separately create articles in those languages, which is the same workload as publishing corresponding articles on each website. In fact, directly publishing articles in WordPress is even faster than using translation plugins.

How to build an independent multilingual website

Still using the example from the QQ chat screenshot above, if you need to build 6 independent websites at once, each requiring the upload of over 100 products, it can indeed be tedious. However, there is a convenient method: backing up the website data and importing it into a new website:

1. Back up the entire website that has finished uploading products (Website Backup Tutorial);
2. Upload the backup to a new server and restore it;
3. Modify the restored database's domain name to match the domain bound to the corresponding language website;
4. Modify product titles and descriptions in the website backend to the corresponding language.

This process saves the trouble of uploading products, avoiding the tedious task of uploading product images one by one. If you want to build a multilingual website this way, it is recommended to use Vultr servers, for reasons referenced in the article below:

• Multi-Datacenter Cross-Border Foreign Trade VPS Server Recommendation_Vultr_Complete Purchase and Usage Tutorial

Using Vultr also allows you to utilize their snapshot service to quickly create VPS servers with the same data. In simpler terms,like installing a ghost system in the past(you might not have heard of it), you have one file, and Vultr has a copier (snapshot function). You can directly make 5 copies of the file and distribute these 5 copies to different people (data centers). Isn't that much more convenient? The server is created, the website environment is set up, the website is built, uploaded product data and published articles are all there. You only need to modify the website domain address and change the text to the corresponding language.