MultiLipi WordPress Plugin: Complete Setup, Translation, Multilingual SEO & Settings Guide

1.1 Navigate to the Settings Page

In your WordPress admin area, open the MultiLipi menu in the left sidebar and click Settings. At the top of the page you will find the Connect to MultiLipi section.

1.2 Enter Your MultiLipi API Key

Paste your project API key into the designated field. The key is available from your MultiLipi account dashboard under the website project settings.

1.3 Fetch and Apply Configuration

Click Fetch and apply configuration. The plugin contacts MultiLipi and synchronizes the following settings from your account:

1.4 Verify Your Connection

After a successful fetch, the page will confirm that your configuration has been applied. Re-synchronize whenever you:

2.1 View Configuration Details

After connecting, click View configuration details to expand the verified backend configuration table. This shows every value that was synchronized from your MultiLipi account.

2.2 Configuration Fields

2.3 Feature Flags

2.4 Localization Modes

The localization mode is set in your MultiLipi account and determines how translated pages are delivered to visitors.

2.5 Query Translation and Exclusions

Query translation rules define which URL parameters trigger translated search behavior. The most common is the WordPress search parameter:

Excluded block classes tell the translation layer which CSS class names to skip when processing page content. For example:

2.6 What If a Feature Is Unavailable?

3.1 What Are Language Directories?

Each target language is served from its own URL subdirectory based on the ISO language code. The source language uses the root domain without a prefix.

3.2 Navigate to Target Language Directories

In MultiLipi → Settings, scroll to the Target language directories section. The table includes enable checkboxes, language codes, language names, URL previews, and directory routing dropdowns.

3.3 Enable Preferred Languages

Check the Enable checkbox beside each language you want to serve. Only enabled languages will be accessible through their directory URL.

3.4 Directory Routing Options

3.5 Conflict Prevention

MultiLipi automatically prevents nested language prefixes. For example, if /en/ is your source language directory, a target such as en-GB will not create a conflicting /en/en-gb/ path. Each language is assigned a unique top-level prefix.

3.6 Save and Test

4.1 What Is a Multilingual Sitemap?

A multilingual XML sitemap lists every URL across all your language directories so search engines can discover and index your translated pages efficiently.

4.2 Navigate to the Sitemap Setting

In MultiLipi → Settings, open the SEO and search section, then locate Multilingual XML sitemap.

4.3 Enable the Sitemap

Check the Enable multilingual XML sitemap checkbox and save. The sitemap index is available at:

4.4 Hreflang Annotations

4.5 Compatibility With WordPress SEO Plugins

The MultiLipi sitemap coexists alongside your existing SEO plugin's sitemap. The following plugins have been tested for compatibility:

4.6 Automatic robots.txt Discovery

MultiLipi automatically adds the sitemap URL to your site's robots.txt file. You can verify it is present by visiting:

4.7 Submit to Google Search Console

5.1 Understanding the Hybrid SEO Scenario

When a language directory uses hybrid routing, some URLs are native WordPress pages and others are MultiLipi-translated pages. Both types must be included in hreflang annotations so search engines understand the full multilingual structure.

5.2 Navigate to Hybrid Directory SEO

In MultiLipi → Settings → SEO and search, find the Hybrid directory SEO subsection.

5.3 Enable Hybrid-Language SEO Publication

Check Enable hybrid-language SEO publication to allow MultiLipi to publish hreflang tags that include both native WordPress pages and MultiLipi-served translations within the same language directory.

5.4 Verify Canonical URLs

A canonical tag tells search engines which URL is the authoritative version of a page. Without correct canonical configuration, a French URL might incorrectly declare the English source as its canonical, or two URLs may claim each other as canonical, creating a conflict.

5.5 Mandatory Confirmation

Before hybrid SEO publication is activated, you must confirm that canonical URLs have been verified on your native WordPress pages under the hybrid directory. The settings page requires you to:

Both the confirmation checkbox and the Save settings button are required. Checking the box without saving will not activate the feature.

6.1 How It Works

When a Hindi visitor searches on your Hindi site, MultiLipi routes the query through its translated search index. The index contains translated versions of your content, enabling accurate matches without requiring the visitor to search in English. The following content types are matched:

6.2 Navigate to Multilingual Search

In MultiLipi → Settings → SEO and search, find the Multilingual WordPress search subsection.

6.3 Enable Multilingual Search

Check Enable multilingual search and save. MultiLipi will begin routing search requests from language directories through its translated search index.

6.4 On-Demand Search Fallback

When a visitor searches for a term that does not yet exist in the translated index, the on-demand fallback handles it through the following steps:

6.5 Visitor-Driven Search Indexing

When visitor-driven indexing is enabled, each search query submitted from a language directory is used to build and expand the translated search index over time. This means the index improves organically as real visitors use your site.

6.6 Language-Specific Search URLs

Search requests from a language directory include the language prefix in the URL. For example, a Hindi search for a term produces:

6.7 Save and Test

7.1 Navigate to the Setting

In MultiLipi → Settings, locate the Automatic translation and caching section.

7.2 Background Pretranslation Scope

Background pretranslation processes your content in advance so translated pages load from cache rather than being translated on first request. Choose the scope that matches your priorities:

7.4 Translation Caching

Check Enable translation caching to store translated responses on the server. Cached translations are served on repeat requests without re-translating, reducing response times for all visitors.

7.5 Server Cache Duration

Set how long cached translations are kept before being refreshed. Choose based on how frequently your content is updated:

Example value for a general business website:

7.6 How Pretranslation and Caching Work Together

Background pretranslation prepares translations before any visitor requests them. Translation caching stores the result of each translation for subsequent requests. When both are active, the first visitor to a page triggers pretranslation, the result is cached, and all subsequent visitors receive the cached translation immediately without waiting.

7.7 Important Considerations

8.1 What Is a URL Slug?

A URL slug is the readable portion of a web address that identifies a specific page. Slug translation replaces the source-language slug with a translated equivalent under the target language directory:

8.2 Navigate to Slug Translations

In the WordPress admin left sidebar, open MultiLipi → Slug translations.

The Slug translations dashboard lets you:

8.3 Filter Controls

Use the filter controls at the top of the Slug translations table to narrow the list.

Each filter controls a different dimension of the slug table:

8.4 Taxonomy Route Bases

In addition to individual content slugs, you can translate the route base that WordPress uses for taxonomy archives. For example, the default WordPress category base creates URLs like:

The structure is: language / translated base / translated term. Both the base (श्रेणी) and the term (खबरें) are translated independently.

To translate a taxonomy route base:

8.5 Edit Translated Slugs for Posts, Pages, and Products

The main content slug table shows all translated slug mappings. Each row contains the content title, source slug, translated slug, translation mode, and controls to save or remove the mapping.

To manually translate a slug:

Example: an About Us page in Hindi.

8.6 Automatic vs Manual Slug Modes

8.7 Unicode URL Handling

Slugs in Hindi (Devanagari), Punjabi (Gurmukhi), and other non-Latin scripts are valid URL characters under the RFC 3987 IRI standard. Browsers display them in their native form, but servers and some tools encode them as percent-encoded sequences.

For example, the Hindi slug हमारे-बारे-में may appear percent-encoded as:

8.8 Duplicate Slug Prevention

MultiLipi applies the same uniqueness logic as WordPress itself (wp_unique_post_slug). If a translated slug already exists for another page in the same language directory, a numeric suffix is appended automatically. For example, if /hi/सेवाएं/ is already in use, a duplicate is stored as /hi/सेवाएं-2/.

8.9 Automatic Redirects

When a visitor accesses the source-language slug under a target language directory — for example, /hi/about-us/ — MultiLipi issues a 302 redirect to the translated slug. The following request types are excluded from redirect processing: HEAD requests, AJAX requests, and WooCommerce add-to-cart actions.

8.10 Remove vs Keep Untranslated Slugs

8.11 How Slug Mappings Are Stored

Translated slug mappings are stored in a dedicated WordPress database table: ${wpdb->prefix}multilipi_slug_mappings. Each row records the tenant ID, target language, object type, object ID, source slug, translated slug, translation mode (automatic or manual), and creation and update timestamps.

8.12 Recommended Workflow

9.1 Navigate to the Reset Option

In the WordPress admin area, go to MultiLipi → Settings and scroll to the bottom of the page. The Delete all stored data section is located there.

9.2 What Data Is Removed

9.3 What Is Not Removed

9.4 How to Delete Plugin Data

The reset is protected by a WordPress nonce (security token), a capability check (only administrators can trigger it), and the mandatory confirmation checkbox. All three safeguards must be satisfied for the deletion to proceed.

9.5 Reconfigure After Reset