In Nov-2022, Webflow announced plans to add multilingual support. Currently we have the ability to set a site-wide language code only.
What is Multilingual Support?
I'm going to divide multilingual support into 5 levels;
- The ability to change the displayed language with a language selector, and to have translated content appear based on the new selection.
- Plus, full path and SEO support. Language dirs like /jp, or subdomains, like zh.mysite.com. Body lang attributes for each page translation, and hreflang links to alternate translations.
- Plus, advanced support. Localized paths. Multi-language sitemap.xml.
- Plus, content management and translation support.
- Plus, team, 3rd party translator, and workflow support.
As of Nov-2022, Webflow is barely over level 1 on that scale. You can create multilingual pages, and you can create a navigator to switch between them. The only way to create a "mostly complete" multilingual site properly would be to host a separate Webflow site for each translation, e.g. mysite.com, de.mysite.com, es.mysite.com, and to do a lot of linking work.
Then you can set the language code for each translated site, site-wide.
Multilingual Options
Multilanguage options for Webflow 2023 - Solid article, on Polyflow's site
It's not known when full multilingual support will become available, so in the meantime, we have these options;
WeGlot
The most widely established solution so far, and historically, it appears to be favored by Webflow users. However it has some known SEO issues with hreflang links.
PolyFlow
Newly announced? Nice integration with the Webflow designer, seems to be designed specifically for Webflow.
Forum announcement 25-Nov-2022.
I believe the polyflow site itself is based on Webflow + Polyflow
Note;
- Appears to always redirect languages to a subdir, including the default language.
- The Polyflow site does not appear to have a sitemap.xml, or a manifest.json. Not sure what that means for e.g. redirects, and SEO.
- Body lang attribute observed
- Language hreflang links observed
- > I suspect this is why even the base language is "mirrored", since Polyflow would need to modify that page
Sygnal's Multilingual Toolset
Suitable for very small sites, and simple translation needs.
