Translating Your Products
Overview
Product information translation is manual. You can either translate in the Admin or with a CSV file. Certain things can be translated and others can not. This tutorial will guide you through this process.
What Can And Can Not Be Translated
What Can Be Translated
- Name
- URL Key
- Overview (short description)
- Description
- Images
- Custom Attributes (Type = Text, WYSIWYG or Yes/No)*
- Customization Titles and Select Options
- Bundle Item Titles
- Downloadable Item Titles
- SEO Meta Data
- Some 3rd Party Product Attributes
* Values for DropDown and Multi-Select attributes can be translated in Products>Attributes
What Can Not Be Translated
- SKU
- Prices
- Inventory
- Categories
- Related Products
- Design Template*
* The Design Template itself can be translated in Edit My Design
Translating Product Information in the Admin
Step 1
Start by going to Products > Product List then clicking into a product.
You then change the Language view in the top right hand corner to the language that you want to add translations for.
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Language View Selector
What is "Default"?
Default is the Default Language as specified in Setup > Localization > Manage Languages. We call it "Default" because if your other languages do not have translations, it will fall-back and display the data from the "Default" language.
Step 2
Once a language is selected, the product edit screen will show you only the information that you have the ability to translate.
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Product Edit Screen with Language Selected. Shows fewer options to edit than on Default View.
Recommendations
If you have a multi-language store, we highly recommend the translation of your product data. Specifically we recommend ensuring each product have the following information translated:
- Name
- URL Key
- Overview & Description
- SEO Meta Data
Furthermore, we highly recommend using our Multi-Language SEO Feature to further improve the reach of your store to your Multi-Language and/or Mult-National audience.
Importing Translations via CSV File
Any of the above product data can be translated with a CSV file. The format is the same as can be found in the Importing Products tutorial series but to translate a row, you must add the column header _store
The value for _store must be the "Language Code" found in Setup > Localization > Manage Languages
See below for sample CSV
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Sample CSV to translate a product
Translation by Google
NOTE: This does not "Translate" your store and provides no SEO benefit.
If you do want your users to have a rudimentary way of translating your store, Google offers it's Language Selector as a widget that can by copy/pasted into an HTML Block in Edit My Design.
Updated about 1 year ago