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Learn Multilingual WordPress with Robert Windisch from Europe’s Largest WordPress Agency

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เนื้อหาจัดทำโดย By WordPress LMS Elearning Expert Chris Badgett and Entrepreneur & Online Marketing Business Strategy Expert Chris Badgett on Teaching, Education, WordPress Development & Online Business., By WordPress LMS Elearning Expert Chris Badgett, Online Marketing Business Strategy Expert Chris Badgett on Teaching, WordPress Development, and Online Business. เนื้อหาพอดแคสต์ทั้งหมด รวมถึงตอน กราฟิก และคำอธิบายพอดแคสต์ได้รับการอัปโหลดและจัดหาให้โดยตรงจาก By WordPress LMS Elearning Expert Chris Badgett and Entrepreneur & Online Marketing Business Strategy Expert Chris Badgett on Teaching, Education, WordPress Development & Online Business., By WordPress LMS Elearning Expert Chris Badgett, Online Marketing Business Strategy Expert Chris Badgett on Teaching, WordPress Development, and Online Business. หรือพันธมิตรแพลตฟอร์มพอดแคสต์ของพวกเขา หากคุณเชื่อว่ามีบุคคลอื่นใช้งานที่มีลิขสิทธิ์ของคุณโดยไม่ได้รับอนุญาต คุณสามารถปฏิบัติตามขั้นตอนที่แสดงไว้ที่นี่ https://th.player.fm/legal

In this LMScast episode, Robert Windisch discusses his knowledge of utilizing WordPress to create multilingual websites.

Robert Windisch is the founder of Inpsyde, the largest WordPress agency in Europe. Robert participates actively in the WordPress community and is a specialist in the creation of multilingual websites. MultilingualPress is a solution that Robert’s company has created, and because of its scalability and performance, it is advised for enterprise-level projects.

He emphasizes how crucial it is to comprehend that there are other ways to get multilingual functionality in WordPress, and the best strategy relies on the particular needs of the project. He suggests using translation plugins like WPML for more basic websites, since they make the process of translating text and managing its surrounding parts easier.

Robert recommends utilizing multisite setups where stringent language control and high performance are required. This way, each language version is handled as a distinct site, guaranteeing content separation and offering more control. Additionally, he suggests Multilingual Press, an enterprise-level solution created by his organization, because of its great performance and scalability.

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Episode Transcript

Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress State of the end, I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMS cast. I’m joined by a special guest. His name is Robert Windisch. He’s from inside over in Europe. And we’re going to get into talking about using WordPress and multi multiple languages, particularly for learning management system applications, but also in general, welcome to the show, Robert.

Robert Windisch: Thank you. Nice for finally being here. I, saw the podcast, I be totally honest. I did not have time to listen to the podcasts, I just typed in there here and there, but I’m so happy to to be here because I, like you are a known person, so that’s why I’m happy, to have a conversation with you.

Chris Badgett: Awesome. You’re a known person too. I’ve seen the hat for years, so it’s great to finally connect. Yeah

Robert Windisch: I try to, like with this, I try to make it happen to that. People really have a visible, like most people going like the guy with the head. And even in WordCamp US Matt came up to me at the bar, like when we were there, where all people were and were like, Oh I saw you here.

And I imagined that WordPress people are here. So I was like, okay, unique identifier where the WordPress people are in a very big, crowded very big area as, WordCamp US was.

Chris Badgett: Yeah. As a quick side note, I love walking around the city or wherever and being like, there’s a WordPress person. You can tell you get your cues and stuff.

It’s awesome. But you definitely have a good proper part of your stick going there for the uninitiated. Tell us about at a high level using WordPress and multi languages. What’s, going on? What are the pieces that people need to think about?

Robert Windisch: So they are There’s different approaches. First of all it’s, it depends.

It’s the answer that everybody hates when, I say that, because it’s really about what do you want to achieve and what is the audience and what is the level of of depth you want to go into. So for example the white house, let’s say, that way, the white house currently has English and Spanish as possibility languages.

And they are using multi site to separate the sites from each other to make sure they are as fast as as as, close to core as possible. And then you have like normal, let’s say normal sites who are not like that kind of I need to survive like a hit of a few hundred thousand visits a second that are normal sites.

We just, someone wants to distribute content to several languages. So data and user currently use a plugin one, one of the plugins to really make sure that they can translate the content and can also can translate everything surrounding this content. Because the problem with multilingual WordPress sites is it’s not done with like simply translating posts and pages, like just think back in the times when we had widgets or for people who are currently using the classic editor.

I’m feel so sorry for you to still dealing with widgets. I hated this and I was so happy when they were gone. So, that’s so many, there are so many content surrounding in WordPress that is that is a different thing. Then WordPress like posts and pages. So there’s different solutions who can deal with that.

And then you have like plugin translations, you have like seam translations and you have all the, let’s say the hot mess that goes into making a WordPress site run. There’s plugins who cannot be translated because the developer said like meh. And, so there’s so many different ways you can pinpoint that, that there’s sorry, no.

Easy to this thing will solve all your problems. It’s really like the plugin space right now. And there is on the horizon, a solution in core.

Chris Badgett: Let’s use an example like French Canada, Quebec. If, somebody it’s really common there to have a French and an English version, how should somebody approach that with their website?

Like what’s the basic version of that? Would you recommend two sites?

Robert Windisch: Yeah it’s really about the so like simply separating the, multisite from a single site approach. It’s for the single, site, as we like normal sites, as normal people would call them.

But for us as a multisite solution people, we tend to use this as a normal version. So from a normal installation of WordPress, you simply put a translation plugin on, I can name names if you want to. There, so currently there’s WPML and you have OT and Ang as, solutions.

You can take there and all of them has ups and downs that you need to like simply be accustomed to. You need to see, okay, how can you translate a scene? Then what, is the, part where you in the design want to switch over to different content?

For example, if you want to have user generated. Comments, for example, or what is the, where are the forms? Like what, is the, as I said before what is the plugin output? Is, the site ready for that? Where do we need to translate that? Is it, was it translated by the plugin auto? And if you want to have, let’s say really fast performance sites and you are okay with the extra work that needs to go in there, then you can really let those two languages have two different sites and a multi site because with multi site they share like the The plugins, they can have a different seam by simply using the multi site feature.

They can have different plugins there, and they also have to have the ability to have different users work on them. So you can have people who are fluent in France and French, but not like having good chops in English. They can all only have access to the French side and the other one have only access to the English side.

So the benefit of a data is that you don’t need to like tell people don’t touch the other language to use. They simply can’t and they can have their own language, like progressing and they can also like then connect stuff with each other. So that’s the possibility with multi site.

But again, this comes with the. Extra amount of the first is you need to understand what you’re doing because it’s, a different, it’s a different starting value you having, because with multi site some things are changing in WordPress in terms of you need to understand that this is now a different site.

You’re not switching over with simply on a, on the press of a of a flag and you’re back and you’re not switching over because you need to switch sites for that. So there is upsides to this, but there’s also like the added let’s say. Extra work of understanding what what multisite entails, but that comes with the best benefit is all the current WordPress translation plugins, they need to bend WordPress core.

So they need to make sure, for example, when you would hit a French translated page, for example with your example in Canada, when you would hit a French would be the translated page, then you basically hitting in WordPress like a four or four. Like it basically, it hits and goes like someone needs to jump in there and going Hey, if this URL part comes up please ask me.

And then the plugins go Hey, this is this thing. You are not a normal post content. That is something we made up. So they need to like, make sure that WordPress knows what to do. And the benefit of having this in a, in the multi site is you don’t need to do anything because when you hit an, a French version of the page, that’s the French multi site and it’s a normal page there.

So simply WordPress starts up and there’s no extra plugin going in there and making sure that the site content is, really the content you were requesting. So that’s the benefit of having that. And now imagine having this translation feature on and having a few thousand hits a minute or a second, then you really want to have extra, like every extra not queries thrown.

You want to have that you want to have the least queries and WordPress flying around the least like PHP memory use and all of that is the, goal you want to have with a high performance side. The question is. Are you doing a high performance site? Are you doing the site that you really want to have a control over?

That was, that needs to be like let’s say enterprise ready. Or that’s like really the customer is someone who really values like, like not doing shortcuts and stuff. So then this all comes in handy, but if you have a, like a normal user site that they didn’t take over and they really are on their own and they need to like work with that, then sometimes the the, other plugins are more useful, like the normal translation plugins.

Chris Badgett: And how did the normal translation plugins work? Are they. I guess what’s the difference between that and just letting somebody’s browser handle it?

Robert Windisch: Yeah, it D because there is, it’s everything is a plugin solution. Everything in there needs to be a plugin because core currently cannot handle that.

So even our solution is a plugin. That the one, there’s one in the white house is our plugin. And that’s the that’s one of the plugins on the multi, site world that you can use. And. Currently it needs to be a block. And so for example, but what, for example, our plugin does simply help you connect things because it’s still multi site, but you need to tell, you need to tell the search engines that you have a French translation of the content.

So if, when it’s, when it hits the French content and goes are you cheating? Do you want to trick me that you can tell the search engines? No, On purpose. Like this is the English version of that. And they both are connected with each other. Very cool.

Chris Badgett: Very cool. Tell us more about the White House project and what your plugin does on there.

Robert Windisch: As a European agency a spoiler, we were not involved with the White House project because. It’s the wider but our solution is let’s say in the in the enterprise agency world and that kind of like professional world our solution is the go to solution for for, translations.

And so when the white house was approaching WordPress VIP to go Hey, can we. Like we want to host the site that was the transition site. So it was built back better. So the transition side as you do not want to get DDoS as the future White House, you look for one of the best solutions in the market and the market, like they’re already like used to getting attacks from everywhere.

That’s why they they reached out to them. And so when they were going like, and we want to do translations, like then WordPress VIP was like, we have one solution for you, but you can choose from that. You have this one solution, but you can, you are free to choose this one thing. And so they choose then our solution.

And we got a like cryptic message in our Slack. Can someone like help them? Or can someone give us some insights into multilingual press for a certain thing? And we were like, That’s a very unspecific request. And and then later we were like, ah, okay, that’s, that was the White House.

So, it really is a normal, WordPress site. It’s just like the the doing and like solution is simply from a, like from an enterprise perspective and because performance and scalability is. One thing like you wanted, you want to have as, this very prominent website.

That’s why they they were choosing like this solution to really have everything they can, they could have focused on performance.

Chris Badgett: Very cool. Let’s look at the LMS niche, particularly one of the challenges they have. is

getting there, but if, our learning platform has a lot of video content, how should somebody approach multilingual? Should we do the multi site or how should we think about that?

Robert Windisch: The question then is how separated do you want to. Show that to the audience. So if you want to have a so that’s why it’s the question is how, you are like streamlining that and how as one of the platform, do you want to present that to the audience?

If you want to have one URL and everything is mixed in there and then you can filter that, then you basically answered your question because then, you don’t want to have the separation or otherwise you need to get everything then to. Back together. But if you want to have focused on several languages and you want to have people like experience this language and everything on the website is then in this language.

So it’s the same thing as you can imagine, like the switching over to the content and then for example, depends on how much the translation plugins can deal with your extra content and how they are ready to separate these things in front end. That’s the question you need to be able to answer, like, how can you do, how can you do the separation?

And if you want to be like fully seen as a, separate cosmos for, those languages, depends on how much content you basically having. I would guess.

Chris Badgett: I have a technical question for you that comes up sometimes with permalinks. If somebody’s Italian, they call it a course is a cursi and they want permalinks changing, but you can’t really have separate permalinks on the same site, right?

That’s not even possible.

Robert Windisch: I don’t know. Like it, it really depends. If you, because if you already bending WordPress as a translation plugin, Why not bend it more and I don’t mean it in a bad way. That’s the, card that like all the plugins got dealt with while we are snickering in the corner going that’s no problem.

Simply have your Slack translated because we don’t like. It’s a different site. So if you, if the site is Italian and you have Italian translation of your Slack, then your Slack is Italian and everything is fine. That’s, us of the multi site solution snickering the corner while the poor, like translation plugins need to deal with Hey, as you said it’s not possible to to translate to have multiple slacks there on, on one page again, like it’s possible.

You just need to do extra work to make this happen. I’m going totally like a flying blind here, I’m not sure if they currently do this. But technically if you have a rewrite doing this for one URL, you can also do with, you could practically do it for all translations. I’m not sure if they doing that because again, like me snickering in the corner, going haha.

Not our problem. I know that’s very not helpful. What I’m saying.

Chris Badgett: No, I just, I think it’s, you’re bringing up a good point, which is it’s complex. And there’s how much do you want to bend WordPress or just do a separate site? Tell us about the phase four vision for WordPress. And if you could just go over phase one, two, and three real quick.

So people know what the context.

Robert Windisch: Yeah. By the way for everyone who’s currently going like what phases Cochran congratulation, you just won a homework. So there is a state of the word. It’s the let’s state of the union of the WordPress ecosystem. And it’s done by Matt Mullenweg the end of the year.

So currently we currently. While recording that we do not have a state of the word this year. So your homework is what’s that from last year or wait till the end of the year to watch this year to simply gives you an insight into where the roadmap of WordPress is, where WordPress is currently at and what was the year and what is the.

Outlook we having. So that’s the easiest way for you to be like up to date, what is happening in the ecosystem, and then you can like show, off to other people how awesome WordPress. So that’s a simply a gimmick you, get with that. The phases of the, block editor were introduced when WordPress 5.

0 was released. And the first phase is to introduce the block editor Gutenberg people notice also as Gutenberg introduced that to the WordPress ecosystem. The phase two was bringing the block editor into front end that what we now call full site editing and site editing so that people can really be able to edit the whole experience and not only the post and the page content and the widgets, by the way, and phase three is then collaboration.

So basically. That’s just imagine Google drive and those like real time experiences and not going like a Paula just is editing this post. Do you want to take it over or do you want to go back to the main site? So basically imagine what would WordPress backend look like if someone would create it right now.

And it’s simply like a editing and what phase three also introduces is workflows. So when someone changes something, then the base workflow system is thought to be in there for other events to happen after that. Just make sure that someone, if they change something, also think about what other things you need to touch.

And this comes in handy for phase four, because for phase four is bringing multilingual to core. And the workflows are a very integration part of that because as Matt said it in the Q and a last year in San Diego. For WordCamp US, he was like all WordPress, all multilingual translation plugins are doing it wrong because what he was missing is he said the workflows are missing.

So if someone trans changes something in the English side, if we stay on the Canadian example, if someone changes something on the English side, then on the French side, something might need to happen. If someone changes like a very important detail on the English side, then on the French side, this might also need to change.

So that’s why the workflows are in phase three and that lead to phase four and making then WordPress going multilingual in core. And now it’s the question that you just ask it like or I, answer you the question that you just want to tell me. Do you want to go forward? Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Badgett: That’s, perfect.

Robert Windisch: That’s when is the question you want to ask? Like, when is everybody goes okay when, is multilingual

Chris Badgett: as a software person, myself, I tend to avoid the wind cause we don’t know sometimes, but do you have an answer?

Robert Windisch: I have a rough guess. If every state of the word is a time in WordPress, when the pressure is getting high for the developers to deliver something that WordPress is really like, leaping forward.

Yeah. That means for me that faced. Two, a phase three, if we get it done might be in two years in my like, just imagine the rough guessing here. So it would be the the state of the word in two years where we have phase three, maybe concluded. And that means it depends on how fast we get the multilingual then in core, because one of the big things were really like the blocker did or in the past, iterations and like block based seams and all of that surrounding this, so that means for me, phase four is maybe.

four to five years like, a way because we want to deliver something really good and we need to really make sure that we nailed on landing when we do multilingual and core, because we cannot simply revamp. The content that we let people create, then like, going a release and going ah, shoot, we have the wrong data structure.

Let’s revamp all the content that is currently translated already in WordPress. So that’s why we need to nail the landing. So that’s why for me, it’s like, four, maybe four years is for me the, approach again, like I have no connect, I have no connection in guessing when this is my guessing is best as yours.

But for me, it’s for me to experience in the ecosystem, like that is a, for me, a good timing. And if we get it earlier. Yay.

Chris Badgett: Nice. I, have a question, which I don’t know if you have much take on or not, but in addition to multilingual is multi currency. So if you’re selling training as an example and you want it to be sold in different currencies depending upon the language, how would one do that?

Robert Windisch: So the easy answer. Just give it their own site. Yes. I know. Like I blow this thing out of proportion, then you, because you need to have your store and multiple sites, but currently it’s the you can have currency trends, translations. So you can have like in the checkout, you have a user, have their own currency, and then on the checkout, you’re going like, this was a fun ride.

And please now pay in dollar, and that’s, a possibility. And you just need to see if people jump off your store or not. So that’s why it’s a really like we tend to for, example, for our own products, we tend to simply have a surprise multi site and have simply a multiple WooCommerce instance there to, to simply deliver exactly to those users.

Chris Badgett: I think that’s a big takeaway. And it’s what we recommend too, that if you’re going to do a separate site or a new, a separate language is basically a separate site. If you really want to deliver the best experience, it’s I think of it you go to a menu, you get a menu in some countries and there’s the stuff is written in multiple languages on the menu and it gets a little complex.

Yeah. If you really want to have the best user experience per language, they get their own menu. And maybe the person talking to him can, speak in that language or whatever. Talk to us about translation and WordPress, like the translators, the people that contribute particularly to the free open source plugins and WordPress core itself, how did it, how did translators make the magic happen for all the different languages, not just on the front end of the website, but how the admin screens look and everything else.

Robert Windisch: Yeah you, mean you like to translate wordpress. org area, right? To the wordpress is translated. Yeah. Okay. Lucky you’re currently speaking to a locale manager. So I’m, very deep in exactly this, area. I just want to make sure that should I not bore you for 10 minutes about that?

So, the best, the most important thing that people might not know is first, everybody can help. Really, I mean that everybody who speaks more than one language, even like several instances of English, they can also help translate this English in English variant for other people. And the most important thing is that translations are reviewed.

That’s why you just imagined like, why can I, when I, when everybody can contribute, so I can go in there and post my affiliate link for translation for some weird language, because nobody understands this and goes yeah, sure, that string is fine. No, you have really we, I think we currently have, oh, like rough guess.

I’m. Was not looking at that for a long time, 60 to 80 languages active in WordPress. Let’s say 60 ish. Like I totally get like messages maybe right now from other people going Hey, that’s was the wrong number. So it’s really about the active and not so active languages. And and translating a plugin and a seam and like core is basically all the same thing.

So we have an interface, we have a software called blog press, which is installed as a solution on translate. wordpress. org and in that you can select the language and then you can, or you can select the plugin and then you can help contribute to this plugin if you speak another language and then someone from this language needs to.

Review that’s why you have some languages where you have more strings to review as translations Because like people has no, have no time to review like all the gifts that people giving to this language, because nobody has time to do the day to day work because you need to understand the language and then you need to really commit to make sure this, translations also get reviewed and the right translations gets accepted.

And if a plugin reaches like 90 percent translation. Or I think for core, it’s a different thing, but if you reach a certain amount of translation, like a very high amount, then for this translation, you get language files created. And this then gets distributed to the users. So, that’s why you have, maybe sometimes if you have a multilingual backend, you get like update and then you’re going like, but.

There’s no update, no plugin, no seam. And then you have Oh yeah, the language was updated because the languages are not connected to the plugins, which was back in the day, like in 2013, when we first discussed like the, language solution it was like, you need to. Have a promo file created as a plugin out or have someone ship you translations that you can add to your zip file, to your wordpress.

org distribution system. And then when you had a new version out. You distributed like all the translation files. So you have half the translation because the people that give you the translations were not having the current version. So that’s why we simply disconnected this translation system while having like the translation running on wordpress.

org and translate wordpress. org for the wordpress. org plugins and for the seams and for core, and then having the, files, like the, plugin files, not having any translations with them on wordpress. org to be able to simply be updated besides having the translations done by by the translators.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Is there anything that you would recommend for like a plugin author to encourage translation or to recruit people or incentivize, or

Robert Windisch: how would, yeah, so there’s a very easy, the first step is check the translation page of your plugin. If you’re on WebPress, Okta, it’s like this plugin can be translated or whatsoever, and then you can jump over.

And if it’s. All red. And there is this plugin is not able to be translated. Yeah. Guess why you don’t have any translations because you did not do the work. And the other thing is there is a, there is in the plugin handbook is a is a chapter for internationalization. Because I saw plugins where they were like, yes, my plugin is ready.

And I was like, how can you use, how can someone translate this string? Yeah, it’s was in the JavaScript and you can also translate JavaScript stuff because so many things right now on JavaScript for any, some weird reason. I don’t know why, but there are so many stuff now happening in JavaScript and you also need to give this translation like to the WordPress system.

To like, to be able to call it in PHP, there’s like a whole chapter in the you don’t like, don’t listen to me, like just go to the translation handbook and, to the plugin handbook and search for internalization. You have there the translation, like the, how can you do the JavaScript files?

Then you can simply use in JavaScript, like this variables where you pull this translations in. And so the first tip is to make sure your plugin is translatable. The second thing is check if you already having check your maybe you already know the users you’re having.

You maybe have them in the WordPress plugin director in the plugin directory, in the support forums, or you, or they already might have already done translations. So see if you can find them. Maybe you can say them like. Thank you for doing my plugin. You might also have a premium version going or you tell your premium users Hey, you can get a free version.

For example, if you help us translate these things, just be aware. If you have random people showing up at translations, they can just submit. Ideas of translations. So you should like, see if you have people who already have translation credits or. They simply onboard themselves to the community, there’s like even a style guide for different languages where people can simply.

Understand how to translate the language. Sounds weird. I know you’re going like, but I speak this language. Are you also in writing? You are a hundred percent sure you know how to write in your language. That’s coming from a German, like even I’m going like. I might be not a hundred percent correct with what I translate there.

But that’s why I just do the locale part and empower people and not doing my translation by myself. All the time I do that sometimes, but the point is really, do you have the you have different style guides for things in WordPress and there’s even a glossary because if you think what posts means in your language, are you sure that’s the WordPress way of translating things?

Because one very important thing for people to understand is for a normal user, the whole backend looks like one thing. So if they stumble onto a very weird translation of a normal word in WordPress post pages. Someone translates this for The word that they totally mean that it’s the perfect way to describing that.

If you want to write about like someone in your plugin needs to do something in posts. Then you use the not translated that did not write glossary word for that. You confuse users and they think it’s all one thing that they are in and not like having a. Software stitched together by 50 plugins.

Chris Badgett: That makes sense. Thanks for taking us on a tour of that. I want to clarify for the audience. You mentioned the multi site approach. And I just want to make sure, are you referring to WordPress multi site. Or just multiple websites and explain the difference there for people who don’t know what

Robert Windisch: multi site is?

Yeah. Thank you for this question. I, love this question. So the so the difference is that multi site is a core feature since WordPress 3. 0 and before that it was a fork, so it’s a very, stable feature in WordPress. It’s not a new thing just that nobody, very little people know.

That doesn’t mean it is a it’s a feature that is not stable. Because you see it right now working on a site called wordpress.com. So that is a multi-site basically. And what it means is that you can have different. Instances on one installation. They all shared like the same code base, but they are different sites.

So what the only thing that they are sharing is users. So every site in the multi site has their own options. User options, posts, comments, pages and like custom post types, WooCommerce products and so on. And LifterLMS courses there. And this is the a base feature of WordPress that everybody could enable on their WordPress site.

There is like a thing with plugins that some plugins are so horribly written that they have problems with multi site. That doesn’t mean multisite is weird, it’s just like the plugins do not care how to write real write code. They’re just going yeah, like this works on my machine. Why should it not work on your machine?

And normally plugins are ready for that. They are just some, horrible, five bucks plugins on some site that are like not dealing with that because never thought, nobody thought about having this feature on. Which again, there’s a core feature since version 3. 0 and everybody currently guesses which year 3.

0 was. Congratulations. You are old.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. And just to explain it using the wordpress. com example. So wordpress. com is a website. But you can get a free free plan on there and they have other plans as well. But you get your own URL. It’s like chris. wordpress. com if you sign up and you get your own. Then you can map a custom domain if you want to, or whatever, but what is actually shared.

Between all the sites, is it, is there really just like one WordPress instance for all of that? Like in terms of, yeah

Robert Windisch: Yeah, yeah. It’s, yes it’s technically a little bit more like the, even for example. They use a system where they not all be in one database because that would be insane.

Like to have like millions of database tables in one day and one database. They use the system to to split this over multiple database servers. And they even can have there is a this is like open source. You can like. Watch it. You can even install it on your site. It just makes sense if you really are going like into the top numbers of like over a few hundred sites.

If you plan with that. Then you would probably look into ludicrous DB or hyper DB is the name of the plugin. I’ve totally butchered the name of the plugin there. That’s from JTJ, I think. And HyperDB is a one from automatic and they simply split the databases of the users.

And you then simply reroute the queries to those. To those databases and that you can simply have exactly the same installation part, like for ground base, and then you can scale from that. But I think they also do a little bit more like tricks in there at wordpress. com. But I think the base system is a normal multi site.

Chris Badgett: Tell us about your agency, Imp Snide. What is it? What are you guys special in specialize in what could people find over there?

Robert Windisch: Yeah. So we are an enterprise agency, which like sounds okay. What does it mean? So we work, we are 130 people. We were founded in like 2006 and we were founded out of the WordPress community in Germany.

So we were like the people who are in the German community and like the moderators of the German community. Then we were like let’s try a business. And now I’m here. And the and that’s why we are a hundred percent remote because when you start a forum, you’re not going and we meet.

At 7 p. m. at this part in the city. So that’s why we were all remote and we like then simply kept that way. So all our 130 plus people are like distributed over the world because we have like, the biggest brands on the planet as our clients. And for example for We do also WooCommerce we also do WooCommerce plugins.

So we are the official vendor, like the official agency helping PayPal, Molly and Payoneer for their WooCommerce plugins. And and for the for the agency like, sites, we, for example, SAP the new site we doing there and then the other names I cannot. Tell you, because I cannot even tell you the industry they are in because your second guess most likely would be already a hit.

So, that’s why we are just like one of the, one of the enterprise agencies in the market. And yeah, we are helping our clients since a very long time with WordPress.

Chris Badgett: Just to give back to the agency folks, watching out there. How does one move to the enterprise space? If somebody wants to start to try to work with clients and grow their agency into enterprise, what should they do first?

Robert Windisch: Have a time machine. So because the the, problem is it’s very it’s Like it’s not a, it’s not a totally crowded space there. But you really need to convince your client that you can make it so that you can really like really deliver that.

And one of the things that we, that we did in the early years, we simply like simply, it sounds weird. We raised our price. So with that before that we, might look cheap to some bigger clients.

And we were like adjusted, like just a few people, and then we raised our price. And with that, like also raised our confidence. Going yes, we can do those projects because if you want to, if you. For example, when we were like focusing on the German market there and and there were like, we were like going yes, we know WordPress. Yes, we, because we are the people from the community. So when someone knows how to do WordPress and exactly, like multi site was a thing for us, that was like a normal thing we are using in projects.

Like even the German WordPress, German needs page was a multi site before it was a multi site. It was multi user was the fork for that. So we were really confident that we can deliver those things. And then when we had conversations with with bigger clients. And we were more than a few people, like one, two, three, more than that.

Then we really could tell them like, we have to confidential. We know how, what to do. we were confident in that. We know we know WordPress really good because. You see over there and even with that, like over the years there is there’s a there’s a thing called WordPress VIP. As I already mentioned that was the hosting system that a hosting provider that the White House choose when you are someone really active in the ecosystem, then there is a way to Be recognized.

So WordPress VIP came towards us in, I think in 2015 or 16 because they were like Hey, we know, we see what you’re doing. You’re doing good for the ecosystem. So we are visible. We were doing good work and they were like, we would like to fall for you to, join us as a agency. So then we became a part of WordPress VIP as a VIP agency for, automatic, and they also then brought us like bigger clients and also brought us multilingual clients, because that was the, like the niche that we really could help WordPress VIP delivering towards the clients because they have like global brands that have like local markets and that’s where multilingual comes into place.

And we. Know this field of work very much. That’s

Chris Badgett: awesome. So that’s Robert Windisch. He’s from impside. com. That’s I N P S Y D E. com. Also check out multilingualpress. org. That’s where it’s at. Thanks for coming on the show, Robert. Thank you for taking us on a tour of how to think about multiple languages and what our options are and sharing your experience with us today.

We really appreciate it.

Robert Windisch: It was a pleasure.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMS cast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at LifterLMS. Go to Lifterlms. com forward slash gift.

Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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In this LMScast episode, Robert Windisch discusses his knowledge of utilizing WordPress to create multilingual websites.

Robert Windisch is the founder of Inpsyde, the largest WordPress agency in Europe. Robert participates actively in the WordPress community and is a specialist in the creation of multilingual websites. MultilingualPress is a solution that Robert’s company has created, and because of its scalability and performance, it is advised for enterprise-level projects.

He emphasizes how crucial it is to comprehend that there are other ways to get multilingual functionality in WordPress, and the best strategy relies on the particular needs of the project. He suggests using translation plugins like WPML for more basic websites, since they make the process of translating text and managing its surrounding parts easier.

Robert recommends utilizing multisite setups where stringent language control and high performance are required. This way, each language version is handled as a distinct site, guaranteeing content separation and offering more control. Additionally, he suggests Multilingual Press, an enterprise-level solution created by his organization, because of its great performance and scalability.

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Episode Transcript

Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress State of the end, I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMS cast. I’m joined by a special guest. His name is Robert Windisch. He’s from inside over in Europe. And we’re going to get into talking about using WordPress and multi multiple languages, particularly for learning management system applications, but also in general, welcome to the show, Robert.

Robert Windisch: Thank you. Nice for finally being here. I, saw the podcast, I be totally honest. I did not have time to listen to the podcasts, I just typed in there here and there, but I’m so happy to to be here because I, like you are a known person, so that’s why I’m happy, to have a conversation with you.

Chris Badgett: Awesome. You’re a known person too. I’ve seen the hat for years, so it’s great to finally connect. Yeah

Robert Windisch: I try to, like with this, I try to make it happen to that. People really have a visible, like most people going like the guy with the head. And even in WordCamp US Matt came up to me at the bar, like when we were there, where all people were and were like, Oh I saw you here.

And I imagined that WordPress people are here. So I was like, okay, unique identifier where the WordPress people are in a very big, crowded very big area as, WordCamp US was.

Chris Badgett: Yeah. As a quick side note, I love walking around the city or wherever and being like, there’s a WordPress person. You can tell you get your cues and stuff.

It’s awesome. But you definitely have a good proper part of your stick going there for the uninitiated. Tell us about at a high level using WordPress and multi languages. What’s, going on? What are the pieces that people need to think about?

Robert Windisch: So they are There’s different approaches. First of all it’s, it depends.

It’s the answer that everybody hates when, I say that, because it’s really about what do you want to achieve and what is the audience and what is the level of of depth you want to go into. So for example the white house, let’s say, that way, the white house currently has English and Spanish as possibility languages.

And they are using multi site to separate the sites from each other to make sure they are as fast as as as, close to core as possible. And then you have like normal, let’s say normal sites who are not like that kind of I need to survive like a hit of a few hundred thousand visits a second that are normal sites.

We just, someone wants to distribute content to several languages. So data and user currently use a plugin one, one of the plugins to really make sure that they can translate the content and can also can translate everything surrounding this content. Because the problem with multilingual WordPress sites is it’s not done with like simply translating posts and pages, like just think back in the times when we had widgets or for people who are currently using the classic editor.

I’m feel so sorry for you to still dealing with widgets. I hated this and I was so happy when they were gone. So, that’s so many, there are so many content surrounding in WordPress that is that is a different thing. Then WordPress like posts and pages. So there’s different solutions who can deal with that.

And then you have like plugin translations, you have like seam translations and you have all the, let’s say the hot mess that goes into making a WordPress site run. There’s plugins who cannot be translated because the developer said like meh. And, so there’s so many different ways you can pinpoint that, that there’s sorry, no.

Easy to this thing will solve all your problems. It’s really like the plugin space right now. And there is on the horizon, a solution in core.

Chris Badgett: Let’s use an example like French Canada, Quebec. If, somebody it’s really common there to have a French and an English version, how should somebody approach that with their website?

Like what’s the basic version of that? Would you recommend two sites?

Robert Windisch: Yeah it’s really about the so like simply separating the, multisite from a single site approach. It’s for the single, site, as we like normal sites, as normal people would call them.

But for us as a multisite solution people, we tend to use this as a normal version. So from a normal installation of WordPress, you simply put a translation plugin on, I can name names if you want to. There, so currently there’s WPML and you have OT and Ang as, solutions.

You can take there and all of them has ups and downs that you need to like simply be accustomed to. You need to see, okay, how can you translate a scene? Then what, is the, part where you in the design want to switch over to different content?

For example, if you want to have user generated. Comments, for example, or what is the, where are the forms? Like what, is the, as I said before what is the plugin output? Is, the site ready for that? Where do we need to translate that? Is it, was it translated by the plugin auto? And if you want to have, let’s say really fast performance sites and you are okay with the extra work that needs to go in there, then you can really let those two languages have two different sites and a multi site because with multi site they share like the The plugins, they can have a different seam by simply using the multi site feature.

They can have different plugins there, and they also have to have the ability to have different users work on them. So you can have people who are fluent in France and French, but not like having good chops in English. They can all only have access to the French side and the other one have only access to the English side.

So the benefit of a data is that you don’t need to like tell people don’t touch the other language to use. They simply can’t and they can have their own language, like progressing and they can also like then connect stuff with each other. So that’s the possibility with multi site.

But again, this comes with the. Extra amount of the first is you need to understand what you’re doing because it’s, a different, it’s a different starting value you having, because with multi site some things are changing in WordPress in terms of you need to understand that this is now a different site.

You’re not switching over with simply on a, on the press of a of a flag and you’re back and you’re not switching over because you need to switch sites for that. So there is upsides to this, but there’s also like the added let’s say. Extra work of understanding what what multisite entails, but that comes with the best benefit is all the current WordPress translation plugins, they need to bend WordPress core.

So they need to make sure, for example, when you would hit a French translated page, for example with your example in Canada, when you would hit a French would be the translated page, then you basically hitting in WordPress like a four or four. Like it basically, it hits and goes like someone needs to jump in there and going Hey, if this URL part comes up please ask me.

And then the plugins go Hey, this is this thing. You are not a normal post content. That is something we made up. So they need to like, make sure that WordPress knows what to do. And the benefit of having this in a, in the multi site is you don’t need to do anything because when you hit an, a French version of the page, that’s the French multi site and it’s a normal page there.

So simply WordPress starts up and there’s no extra plugin going in there and making sure that the site content is, really the content you were requesting. So that’s the benefit of having that. And now imagine having this translation feature on and having a few thousand hits a minute or a second, then you really want to have extra, like every extra not queries thrown.

You want to have that you want to have the least queries and WordPress flying around the least like PHP memory use and all of that is the, goal you want to have with a high performance side. The question is. Are you doing a high performance site? Are you doing the site that you really want to have a control over?

That was, that needs to be like let’s say enterprise ready. Or that’s like really the customer is someone who really values like, like not doing shortcuts and stuff. So then this all comes in handy, but if you have a, like a normal user site that they didn’t take over and they really are on their own and they need to like work with that, then sometimes the the, other plugins are more useful, like the normal translation plugins.

Chris Badgett: And how did the normal translation plugins work? Are they. I guess what’s the difference between that and just letting somebody’s browser handle it?

Robert Windisch: Yeah, it D because there is, it’s everything is a plugin solution. Everything in there needs to be a plugin because core currently cannot handle that.

So even our solution is a plugin. That the one, there’s one in the white house is our plugin. And that’s the that’s one of the plugins on the multi, site world that you can use. And. Currently it needs to be a block. And so for example, but what, for example, our plugin does simply help you connect things because it’s still multi site, but you need to tell, you need to tell the search engines that you have a French translation of the content.

So if, when it’s, when it hits the French content and goes are you cheating? Do you want to trick me that you can tell the search engines? No, On purpose. Like this is the English version of that. And they both are connected with each other. Very cool.

Chris Badgett: Very cool. Tell us more about the White House project and what your plugin does on there.

Robert Windisch: As a European agency a spoiler, we were not involved with the White House project because. It’s the wider but our solution is let’s say in the in the enterprise agency world and that kind of like professional world our solution is the go to solution for for, translations.

And so when the white house was approaching WordPress VIP to go Hey, can we. Like we want to host the site that was the transition site. So it was built back better. So the transition side as you do not want to get DDoS as the future White House, you look for one of the best solutions in the market and the market, like they’re already like used to getting attacks from everywhere.

That’s why they they reached out to them. And so when they were going like, and we want to do translations, like then WordPress VIP was like, we have one solution for you, but you can choose from that. You have this one solution, but you can, you are free to choose this one thing. And so they choose then our solution.

And we got a like cryptic message in our Slack. Can someone like help them? Or can someone give us some insights into multilingual press for a certain thing? And we were like, That’s a very unspecific request. And and then later we were like, ah, okay, that’s, that was the White House.

So, it really is a normal, WordPress site. It’s just like the the doing and like solution is simply from a, like from an enterprise perspective and because performance and scalability is. One thing like you wanted, you want to have as, this very prominent website.

That’s why they they were choosing like this solution to really have everything they can, they could have focused on performance.

Chris Badgett: Very cool. Let’s look at the LMS niche, particularly one of the challenges they have. is

getting there, but if, our learning platform has a lot of video content, how should somebody approach multilingual? Should we do the multi site or how should we think about that?

Robert Windisch: The question then is how separated do you want to. Show that to the audience. So if you want to have a so that’s why it’s the question is how, you are like streamlining that and how as one of the platform, do you want to present that to the audience?

If you want to have one URL and everything is mixed in there and then you can filter that, then you basically answered your question because then, you don’t want to have the separation or otherwise you need to get everything then to. Back together. But if you want to have focused on several languages and you want to have people like experience this language and everything on the website is then in this language.

So it’s the same thing as you can imagine, like the switching over to the content and then for example, depends on how much the translation plugins can deal with your extra content and how they are ready to separate these things in front end. That’s the question you need to be able to answer, like, how can you do, how can you do the separation?

And if you want to be like fully seen as a, separate cosmos for, those languages, depends on how much content you basically having. I would guess.

Chris Badgett: I have a technical question for you that comes up sometimes with permalinks. If somebody’s Italian, they call it a course is a cursi and they want permalinks changing, but you can’t really have separate permalinks on the same site, right?

That’s not even possible.

Robert Windisch: I don’t know. Like it, it really depends. If you, because if you already bending WordPress as a translation plugin, Why not bend it more and I don’t mean it in a bad way. That’s the, card that like all the plugins got dealt with while we are snickering in the corner going that’s no problem.

Simply have your Slack translated because we don’t like. It’s a different site. So if you, if the site is Italian and you have Italian translation of your Slack, then your Slack is Italian and everything is fine. That’s, us of the multi site solution snickering the corner while the poor, like translation plugins need to deal with Hey, as you said it’s not possible to to translate to have multiple slacks there on, on one page again, like it’s possible.

You just need to do extra work to make this happen. I’m going totally like a flying blind here, I’m not sure if they currently do this. But technically if you have a rewrite doing this for one URL, you can also do with, you could practically do it for all translations. I’m not sure if they doing that because again, like me snickering in the corner, going haha.

Not our problem. I know that’s very not helpful. What I’m saying.

Chris Badgett: No, I just, I think it’s, you’re bringing up a good point, which is it’s complex. And there’s how much do you want to bend WordPress or just do a separate site? Tell us about the phase four vision for WordPress. And if you could just go over phase one, two, and three real quick.

So people know what the context.

Robert Windisch: Yeah. By the way for everyone who’s currently going like what phases Cochran congratulation, you just won a homework. So there is a state of the word. It’s the let’s state of the union of the WordPress ecosystem. And it’s done by Matt Mullenweg the end of the year.

So currently we currently. While recording that we do not have a state of the word this year. So your homework is what’s that from last year or wait till the end of the year to watch this year to simply gives you an insight into where the roadmap of WordPress is, where WordPress is currently at and what was the year and what is the.

Outlook we having. So that’s the easiest way for you to be like up to date, what is happening in the ecosystem, and then you can like show, off to other people how awesome WordPress. So that’s a simply a gimmick you, get with that. The phases of the, block editor were introduced when WordPress 5.

0 was released. And the first phase is to introduce the block editor Gutenberg people notice also as Gutenberg introduced that to the WordPress ecosystem. The phase two was bringing the block editor into front end that what we now call full site editing and site editing so that people can really be able to edit the whole experience and not only the post and the page content and the widgets, by the way, and phase three is then collaboration.

So basically. That’s just imagine Google drive and those like real time experiences and not going like a Paula just is editing this post. Do you want to take it over or do you want to go back to the main site? So basically imagine what would WordPress backend look like if someone would create it right now.

And it’s simply like a editing and what phase three also introduces is workflows. So when someone changes something, then the base workflow system is thought to be in there for other events to happen after that. Just make sure that someone, if they change something, also think about what other things you need to touch.

And this comes in handy for phase four, because for phase four is bringing multilingual to core. And the workflows are a very integration part of that because as Matt said it in the Q and a last year in San Diego. For WordCamp US, he was like all WordPress, all multilingual translation plugins are doing it wrong because what he was missing is he said the workflows are missing.

So if someone trans changes something in the English side, if we stay on the Canadian example, if someone changes something on the English side, then on the French side, something might need to happen. If someone changes like a very important detail on the English side, then on the French side, this might also need to change.

So that’s why the workflows are in phase three and that lead to phase four and making then WordPress going multilingual in core. And now it’s the question that you just ask it like or I, answer you the question that you just want to tell me. Do you want to go forward? Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Badgett: That’s, perfect.

Robert Windisch: That’s when is the question you want to ask? Like, when is everybody goes okay when, is multilingual

Chris Badgett: as a software person, myself, I tend to avoid the wind cause we don’t know sometimes, but do you have an answer?

Robert Windisch: I have a rough guess. If every state of the word is a time in WordPress, when the pressure is getting high for the developers to deliver something that WordPress is really like, leaping forward.

Yeah. That means for me that faced. Two, a phase three, if we get it done might be in two years in my like, just imagine the rough guessing here. So it would be the the state of the word in two years where we have phase three, maybe concluded. And that means it depends on how fast we get the multilingual then in core, because one of the big things were really like the blocker did or in the past, iterations and like block based seams and all of that surrounding this, so that means for me, phase four is maybe.

four to five years like, a way because we want to deliver something really good and we need to really make sure that we nailed on landing when we do multilingual and core, because we cannot simply revamp. The content that we let people create, then like, going a release and going ah, shoot, we have the wrong data structure.

Let’s revamp all the content that is currently translated already in WordPress. So that’s why we need to nail the landing. So that’s why for me, it’s like, four, maybe four years is for me the, approach again, like I have no connect, I have no connection in guessing when this is my guessing is best as yours.

But for me, it’s for me to experience in the ecosystem, like that is a, for me, a good timing. And if we get it earlier. Yay.

Chris Badgett: Nice. I, have a question, which I don’t know if you have much take on or not, but in addition to multilingual is multi currency. So if you’re selling training as an example and you want it to be sold in different currencies depending upon the language, how would one do that?

Robert Windisch: So the easy answer. Just give it their own site. Yes. I know. Like I blow this thing out of proportion, then you, because you need to have your store and multiple sites, but currently it’s the you can have currency trends, translations. So you can have like in the checkout, you have a user, have their own currency, and then on the checkout, you’re going like, this was a fun ride.

And please now pay in dollar, and that’s, a possibility. And you just need to see if people jump off your store or not. So that’s why it’s a really like we tend to for, example, for our own products, we tend to simply have a surprise multi site and have simply a multiple WooCommerce instance there to, to simply deliver exactly to those users.

Chris Badgett: I think that’s a big takeaway. And it’s what we recommend too, that if you’re going to do a separate site or a new, a separate language is basically a separate site. If you really want to deliver the best experience, it’s I think of it you go to a menu, you get a menu in some countries and there’s the stuff is written in multiple languages on the menu and it gets a little complex.

Yeah. If you really want to have the best user experience per language, they get their own menu. And maybe the person talking to him can, speak in that language or whatever. Talk to us about translation and WordPress, like the translators, the people that contribute particularly to the free open source plugins and WordPress core itself, how did it, how did translators make the magic happen for all the different languages, not just on the front end of the website, but how the admin screens look and everything else.

Robert Windisch: Yeah you, mean you like to translate wordpress. org area, right? To the wordpress is translated. Yeah. Okay. Lucky you’re currently speaking to a locale manager. So I’m, very deep in exactly this, area. I just want to make sure that should I not bore you for 10 minutes about that?

So, the best, the most important thing that people might not know is first, everybody can help. Really, I mean that everybody who speaks more than one language, even like several instances of English, they can also help translate this English in English variant for other people. And the most important thing is that translations are reviewed.

That’s why you just imagined like, why can I, when I, when everybody can contribute, so I can go in there and post my affiliate link for translation for some weird language, because nobody understands this and goes yeah, sure, that string is fine. No, you have really we, I think we currently have, oh, like rough guess.

I’m. Was not looking at that for a long time, 60 to 80 languages active in WordPress. Let’s say 60 ish. Like I totally get like messages maybe right now from other people going Hey, that’s was the wrong number. So it’s really about the active and not so active languages. And and translating a plugin and a seam and like core is basically all the same thing.

So we have an interface, we have a software called blog press, which is installed as a solution on translate. wordpress. org and in that you can select the language and then you can, or you can select the plugin and then you can help contribute to this plugin if you speak another language and then someone from this language needs to.

Review that’s why you have some languages where you have more strings to review as translations Because like people has no, have no time to review like all the gifts that people giving to this language, because nobody has time to do the day to day work because you need to understand the language and then you need to really commit to make sure this, translations also get reviewed and the right translations gets accepted.

And if a plugin reaches like 90 percent translation. Or I think for core, it’s a different thing, but if you reach a certain amount of translation, like a very high amount, then for this translation, you get language files created. And this then gets distributed to the users. So, that’s why you have, maybe sometimes if you have a multilingual backend, you get like update and then you’re going like, but.

There’s no update, no plugin, no seam. And then you have Oh yeah, the language was updated because the languages are not connected to the plugins, which was back in the day, like in 2013, when we first discussed like the, language solution it was like, you need to. Have a promo file created as a plugin out or have someone ship you translations that you can add to your zip file, to your wordpress.

org distribution system. And then when you had a new version out. You distributed like all the translation files. So you have half the translation because the people that give you the translations were not having the current version. So that’s why we simply disconnected this translation system while having like the translation running on wordpress.

org and translate wordpress. org for the wordpress. org plugins and for the seams and for core, and then having the, files, like the, plugin files, not having any translations with them on wordpress. org to be able to simply be updated besides having the translations done by by the translators.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Is there anything that you would recommend for like a plugin author to encourage translation or to recruit people or incentivize, or

Robert Windisch: how would, yeah, so there’s a very easy, the first step is check the translation page of your plugin. If you’re on WebPress, Okta, it’s like this plugin can be translated or whatsoever, and then you can jump over.

And if it’s. All red. And there is this plugin is not able to be translated. Yeah. Guess why you don’t have any translations because you did not do the work. And the other thing is there is a, there is in the plugin handbook is a is a chapter for internationalization. Because I saw plugins where they were like, yes, my plugin is ready.

And I was like, how can you use, how can someone translate this string? Yeah, it’s was in the JavaScript and you can also translate JavaScript stuff because so many things right now on JavaScript for any, some weird reason. I don’t know why, but there are so many stuff now happening in JavaScript and you also need to give this translation like to the WordPress system.

To like, to be able to call it in PHP, there’s like a whole chapter in the you don’t like, don’t listen to me, like just go to the translation handbook and, to the plugin handbook and search for internalization. You have there the translation, like the, how can you do the JavaScript files?

Then you can simply use in JavaScript, like this variables where you pull this translations in. And so the first tip is to make sure your plugin is translatable. The second thing is check if you already having check your maybe you already know the users you’re having.

You maybe have them in the WordPress plugin director in the plugin directory, in the support forums, or you, or they already might have already done translations. So see if you can find them. Maybe you can say them like. Thank you for doing my plugin. You might also have a premium version going or you tell your premium users Hey, you can get a free version.

For example, if you help us translate these things, just be aware. If you have random people showing up at translations, they can just submit. Ideas of translations. So you should like, see if you have people who already have translation credits or. They simply onboard themselves to the community, there’s like even a style guide for different languages where people can simply.

Understand how to translate the language. Sounds weird. I know you’re going like, but I speak this language. Are you also in writing? You are a hundred percent sure you know how to write in your language. That’s coming from a German, like even I’m going like. I might be not a hundred percent correct with what I translate there.

But that’s why I just do the locale part and empower people and not doing my translation by myself. All the time I do that sometimes, but the point is really, do you have the you have different style guides for things in WordPress and there’s even a glossary because if you think what posts means in your language, are you sure that’s the WordPress way of translating things?

Because one very important thing for people to understand is for a normal user, the whole backend looks like one thing. So if they stumble onto a very weird translation of a normal word in WordPress post pages. Someone translates this for The word that they totally mean that it’s the perfect way to describing that.

If you want to write about like someone in your plugin needs to do something in posts. Then you use the not translated that did not write glossary word for that. You confuse users and they think it’s all one thing that they are in and not like having a. Software stitched together by 50 plugins.

Chris Badgett: That makes sense. Thanks for taking us on a tour of that. I want to clarify for the audience. You mentioned the multi site approach. And I just want to make sure, are you referring to WordPress multi site. Or just multiple websites and explain the difference there for people who don’t know what

Robert Windisch: multi site is?

Yeah. Thank you for this question. I, love this question. So the so the difference is that multi site is a core feature since WordPress 3. 0 and before that it was a fork, so it’s a very, stable feature in WordPress. It’s not a new thing just that nobody, very little people know.

That doesn’t mean it is a it’s a feature that is not stable. Because you see it right now working on a site called wordpress.com. So that is a multi-site basically. And what it means is that you can have different. Instances on one installation. They all shared like the same code base, but they are different sites.

So what the only thing that they are sharing is users. So every site in the multi site has their own options. User options, posts, comments, pages and like custom post types, WooCommerce products and so on. And LifterLMS courses there. And this is the a base feature of WordPress that everybody could enable on their WordPress site.

There is like a thing with plugins that some plugins are so horribly written that they have problems with multi site. That doesn’t mean multisite is weird, it’s just like the plugins do not care how to write real write code. They’re just going yeah, like this works on my machine. Why should it not work on your machine?

And normally plugins are ready for that. They are just some, horrible, five bucks plugins on some site that are like not dealing with that because never thought, nobody thought about having this feature on. Which again, there’s a core feature since version 3. 0 and everybody currently guesses which year 3.

0 was. Congratulations. You are old.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. And just to explain it using the wordpress. com example. So wordpress. com is a website. But you can get a free free plan on there and they have other plans as well. But you get your own URL. It’s like chris. wordpress. com if you sign up and you get your own. Then you can map a custom domain if you want to, or whatever, but what is actually shared.

Between all the sites, is it, is there really just like one WordPress instance for all of that? Like in terms of, yeah

Robert Windisch: Yeah, yeah. It’s, yes it’s technically a little bit more like the, even for example. They use a system where they not all be in one database because that would be insane.

Like to have like millions of database tables in one day and one database. They use the system to to split this over multiple database servers. And they even can have there is a this is like open source. You can like. Watch it. You can even install it on your site. It just makes sense if you really are going like into the top numbers of like over a few hundred sites.

If you plan with that. Then you would probably look into ludicrous DB or hyper DB is the name of the plugin. I’ve totally butchered the name of the plugin there. That’s from JTJ, I think. And HyperDB is a one from automatic and they simply split the databases of the users.

And you then simply reroute the queries to those. To those databases and that you can simply have exactly the same installation part, like for ground base, and then you can scale from that. But I think they also do a little bit more like tricks in there at wordpress. com. But I think the base system is a normal multi site.

Chris Badgett: Tell us about your agency, Imp Snide. What is it? What are you guys special in specialize in what could people find over there?

Robert Windisch: Yeah. So we are an enterprise agency, which like sounds okay. What does it mean? So we work, we are 130 people. We were founded in like 2006 and we were founded out of the WordPress community in Germany.

So we were like the people who are in the German community and like the moderators of the German community. Then we were like let’s try a business. And now I’m here. And the and that’s why we are a hundred percent remote because when you start a forum, you’re not going and we meet.

At 7 p. m. at this part in the city. So that’s why we were all remote and we like then simply kept that way. So all our 130 plus people are like distributed over the world because we have like, the biggest brands on the planet as our clients. And for example for We do also WooCommerce we also do WooCommerce plugins.

So we are the official vendor, like the official agency helping PayPal, Molly and Payoneer for their WooCommerce plugins. And and for the for the agency like, sites, we, for example, SAP the new site we doing there and then the other names I cannot. Tell you, because I cannot even tell you the industry they are in because your second guess most likely would be already a hit.

So, that’s why we are just like one of the, one of the enterprise agencies in the market. And yeah, we are helping our clients since a very long time with WordPress.

Chris Badgett: Just to give back to the agency folks, watching out there. How does one move to the enterprise space? If somebody wants to start to try to work with clients and grow their agency into enterprise, what should they do first?

Robert Windisch: Have a time machine. So because the the, problem is it’s very it’s Like it’s not a, it’s not a totally crowded space there. But you really need to convince your client that you can make it so that you can really like really deliver that.

And one of the things that we, that we did in the early years, we simply like simply, it sounds weird. We raised our price. So with that before that we, might look cheap to some bigger clients.

And we were like adjusted, like just a few people, and then we raised our price. And with that, like also raised our confidence. Going yes, we can do those projects because if you want to, if you. For example, when we were like focusing on the German market there and and there were like, we were like going yes, we know WordPress. Yes, we, because we are the people from the community. So when someone knows how to do WordPress and exactly, like multi site was a thing for us, that was like a normal thing we are using in projects.

Like even the German WordPress, German needs page was a multi site before it was a multi site. It was multi user was the fork for that. So we were really confident that we can deliver those things. And then when we had conversations with with bigger clients. And we were more than a few people, like one, two, three, more than that.

Then we really could tell them like, we have to confidential. We know how, what to do. we were confident in that. We know we know WordPress really good because. You see over there and even with that, like over the years there is there’s a there’s a thing called WordPress VIP. As I already mentioned that was the hosting system that a hosting provider that the White House choose when you are someone really active in the ecosystem, then there is a way to Be recognized.

So WordPress VIP came towards us in, I think in 2015 or 16 because they were like Hey, we know, we see what you’re doing. You’re doing good for the ecosystem. So we are visible. We were doing good work and they were like, we would like to fall for you to, join us as a agency. So then we became a part of WordPress VIP as a VIP agency for, automatic, and they also then brought us like bigger clients and also brought us multilingual clients, because that was the, like the niche that we really could help WordPress VIP delivering towards the clients because they have like global brands that have like local markets and that’s where multilingual comes into place.

And we. Know this field of work very much. That’s

Chris Badgett: awesome. So that’s Robert Windisch. He’s from impside. com. That’s I N P S Y D E. com. Also check out multilingualpress. org. That’s where it’s at. Thanks for coming on the show, Robert. Thank you for taking us on a tour of how to think about multiple languages and what our options are and sharing your experience with us today.

We really appreciate it.

Robert Windisch: It was a pleasure.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMS cast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at LifterLMS. Go to Lifterlms. com forward slash gift.

Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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