Selling in more than one language

Manage → Settings, the Content languages block (vi: Quản lý → Cài đặt, Ngôn ngữ nội dung) — that is where it starts. Everything else on this page only appears once the store has two or more languages.

The thing to know first: adding a language changes no existing address. The default language keeps every URL exactly as it was; each additional language is served under its own path prefix — /en/about is /about in English. Links your shoppers saved keep working, and search engines are told about every language version of each page so they can send a visitor to the right one.

How the language rides the address — three choices

The path prefix is the default, not the only option. The Content languages block carries "How the language rides the address" with three carriages, and each store uses exactly one — honouring all three at once would give every page three addresses, which search engines punish as duplicate content:

• Path prefix — /en/about. The safest for SEO, and our recommendation.
• Query parameter — /about?lang=en. Every language shares one address plus a parameter; simplest to link to, weakest for indexing.
• Subdomain — en.your-domain.com. Needs a custom domain, and one DNS record per language pointed at the platform — the HTTPS certificate is issued automatically on the first visit. Not available on the built-in .sbuilder.site address, whose certificate covers one label only.

In every carriage the default language carries nothing — no prefix, no parameter, no label — so switching carriages breaks no address a shopper saved in the default language.

Also worth knowing up front: this is not an auto-translate-the-site switch. Translations are your content — the machine only fills in what is missing, and what it writes is marked until you have read it.

Where you translate: in context

There is no "table of every string to translate". You translate a thing where you edit that thing:

• Products and articles — open the product or article in Manage; the Translations panel sits inside the edit screen. The screen states its own rule:

  "The source text is on the left. What you type is what the shopper reads in that language."

  A field left empty shows the original on that language's page — never a blank.

• Page copy — in the page builder, next to the device switch, sits Editing language. Pick a language and type straight onto the page: same page, different view. Layout, images and design are shared; only the words follow the language.

• Page SEO — the title and description a search engine shows are translatable in the page's SEO dialog. The address is not: a page has one URL, and the language prefix is added automatically.

• Product and article SEO — the Translations panel also carries SEO title and SEO description, right under the content fields. Left empty, each keeps its own original; and on a product that never had its own SEO title, the page title follows the translated product name — exactly as the original followed the original name.

The machine fills what is missing

Machine translation comes at three reaches, one rule:

• One item — the Translate what's missing button in the open product's or article's Translations panel.
• One page — in the page builder, while standing in a language, the ✦ button beside the language picker translates everything missing on that page, and the canvas changes in front of you.
• The whole store — in Settings' Content languages block, Translate what's missing — whole store walks every product, collection, article and topic in one press.

The rule that matters most sits right under each button:

"Only fills empty fields. Text you have written is never overwritten."

Which means pressing it any number of times is safe: a translation you fixed by hand stays yours. The result says so explicitly — "Translated 12 fields. 3 already had text and were left alone."

The machine-translation quota is monthly and belongs to the platform. When it runs out the button says so plainly — "This month's translation quota is used up. You can still translate by hand." — and everything else keeps working. On a whole-store run, everything translated before the quota ran out stays — press again next month and it continues, precisely because the machine never overwrites a field that has text.

Reviewing what the machine wrote

Machine-translated text carries the label Machine — unreviewed until a person has read it. That label exists for a reason: publishing storefront copy nobody in the store has ever read is a decision, not a default.

Manage → Translations (vi: Quản lý → Bản dịch) is the review queue: everything the machine wrote that nobody has read, oldest first. Each row offers two moves — Approve when the wording is fine, or Open in context to land where the text actually lives before you decide: products, articles, collections and topics open their own edit screens, and a page text row opens the page builder itself — the right page, that element already selected, the canvas standing in the language under review. Each row says which page it lives on.

The queue is searchable, by the same rule as the storefront's search box: accents are optional — "ao thun" finds "Áo thun" — and matching is by word start, so "ao" does not drag in "Chảo". The filter beside it keeps one kind of content (products only, articles only…) when the queue is long.

There is no "approve all", deliberately: this queue exists to certify that somebody read it. A button that emptied it unread would turn what it certifies into a lie.

Shoppers find things in whichever language they search

Storefront search matches translations too: a shopper on /en/ typing a product's English name finds it, even though you named it in Vietnamese. Nothing to configure — once translated, it is findable.

Progress

The Content languages block in Settings shows per-language progress — how many items have a translation. With one line worth reading carefully:

"Counts what has been translated. Items nobody has started are not counted here."

Meaning the number measures work done, not work remaining — a store that has translated nothing shows "nothing yet", not "0%".