Breadcrumbs: not showing WPML translation only for ACF Main Custom Taxonomy

[Sophie-2e]

Hello Team Yoast,

I am not sure if it is a bug but I am following your customer supporter request: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/breadcrumbs-not-showing-wpml-translation-only-for-acf-main-custom-taxonomy/#post-17235052

I need your help with the breadcrumbs. I used custom taxonomy created with ACF and translated with WPML.

The issue is that the breadcrumbs do not take the translation of the main custom taxonomy but do translate well the sub-taxonomies. I need the main taxonomy to be translated too.

To give an example: if the main custom taxonomy is called ‘main taxonomy’ (translated in french with ‘taxonomie principale’) and the sub-taxonomy is ‘sub-taxonomy’ (and in french ‘sous-taxonomie’), below is how the breadcrumbs should be shown in FR on the sub-taxonomy archive page : Accueil > taxonomie principale > sous-taxonomie

But instead, it is displayed like this in french: Accueil > main taxonomy > sous-taxonomie

Could you please help me out on how I should set up Yoast with ACF and WPML so breadcrumbs are well-translated including the main taxonomy translation?

[Sophie-2e]

Any update on this issue??

[josevarghese]

Hi @Sophie-2e

First of all, sorry for the delay, as this issue was not on my radar before as due to the BF sale.

I tried to replicate the issue you pointed out, but as for a taxonomy within an ACF CPT, the translated taxonomy and sub-taxonomy are outputted without any issues with the selected language as breadcrumb. If the issue persists in this case, we recommend you to reach out to our WordPress.org support forum for more support on this, as we use GitHub exclusively for well-documented bug reports or feature requests.

If you are mentioning about the custom taxonomy created using the ACF (which is another option provided by ACF), kindly please confirm whether you have installed the WPML SEO plugin and Advanced Custom Fields Multilingual provided by WPML on your website or not. If not, we recommend you to install both plugins to work this.

If the issue persists even after that and if you prefer it as a bug, then we recommend you to share more detailed steps on how to replicate this further at our end, as the above steps are not clear to replicate this for the custom taxonomies created using the ACF. Can you kindly provide us a video of the issue mentioning how the taxonomy is created and how you have translated the taxonomy to the FR language? It will help us replicate the steps from our end. You can use free tools like awesomescreenshots.com or loom.com to create the video.

[Sophie-2e]

Happy New Year @josevarghese

I already reached out to your support who told me to open this GitHub issue: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/breadcrumbs-not-showing-wpml-translation-only-for-acf-main-custom-taxonomy/#post-17235052

Yes, I already have WPML SEO activated as shown here: https://ibb.co/TKVJbtd

As for explanation, please review video here: https://share.vidyard.com/watch/ReHBWfdK6GvFCGMtTTTmTf?

And for settings of the taxonomies, please view here:

Let me know if you need any more info. Looking forward to hearing from you, Thanks for your help.

[josevarghese]

Hi @Sophie-2e

Happy New Year, and thanks for sharing the video with more details. I can see that the WPML SEO plugin is installed. What about the plugin named "Advanced Custom Fields Multilingual"? Is this already downloaded from the WPML download page and installed on the website? Within the video, I was not able to confirm this as this plugin shows at the top of the Plugins page.

Also, can you please let us know whether any text is showing for the Breadcrumb title field for the page /nl/duurzame-collecties/ and when editing it?

[Sophie-2e]

Hello @josevarghese,

Yes as well for Advanced Custom Fields Multilingual:

[josevarghese]

Thanks for the details. I checked the page https://staging-panda-testwebsite.kinsta.cloud/nl/duurzame-collecties/geen-plastic/ source code and noticed that two breadcrumb schemas are outputted. The Yoast SEO outputted breadcrumb schema is

{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https://staging-panda-testwebsite.kinsta.cloud/nl/duurzame-collecties/geen-plastic/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://staging-panda-testwebsite.kinsta.cloud/nl/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Geen Plastic"}]}, which means the breadcrumb outputted by Yoast SEO is Home > Geen Plastic

The other breadcrumb schema which is outputted within the source code, seems to be from another plugin or by the theme on your website. The other breadcrumb outputted within the source code is: <script type="application/ld+json">{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"name":"Home","@id":"https:\/\/staging-panda-testwebsite.kinsta.cloud\/nl\/"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"name":"Sustainable Collections","@id":"https:\/\/staging-panda-testwebsite.kinsta.cloud\/nl\/duurzame-collecties\/geen-plastic\/"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"name":"Geen Plastic","@id":"https:\/\/staging-panda-testwebsite.kinsta.cloud\/nl\/duurzame-collecties\/geen-plastic\/"}}]}</script> The above mentioned breadcrumb is the one that is now outputted on the frontend as Home > Sustainable Collections > Geen Plastic and not from the Yoast SEO plugin.

As we don't output the second breadcrumb, it seems like you have added a different breadcrumb widget on the Elementor (or the page builder you are using) or some other plugin is used to output the specific breadcrumb on these pages. So we recommend you to perform a conflict check, or else we recommend you to reach out to the support forum for more steps on how to remove the second breadcrumb and to add the Yoast breadcrumb.

[Sophie-2e]

@josevarghese ,

Yes I used the theme breadcrumbs when I used the theme page builder and the Elementor breadcrumbs when I use the Elementor theme builder.

I already contacted Elementor and after their investigation, we noticed that it happened whatever the breadcrumbs used:

Elementor support answer > I checked the site and can see the issue that the Sustainable Collections is not getting translated. I went ahead and disabled both Elementor and Elementor Pro plugins and installed the Astra theme which also uses default WooCommerce breadcrumb but the issue is still happening. This confirms that the issue is not related to Elementor or Elementor Pro plugins but to SEO plugin breadcrumb and WPML itself. Here are their screenshots:

The second schema is the right shema which is implemented thanks to ACF but I already contacted ACF it seems everything is set up correctly.

Any idea on how to fix it?

[josevarghese]

Hi @Sophie-2e

Thanks for the details. We are checking this at our end and will keep you posted with more information or findings.

[Sophie-2e]

Hello @josevarghese thank you very much for investigating. I will wait for your news here then.

[Sophie-2e]

Hello @josevarghese hope you're well.

Any update? I have update YOAST, WPML and ACF to last version but still see the issue.

[Sophie-2e]

Hello @josevarghese , do you have any update on this ? I still face the issue even after all latest updates.

[josevarghese]

Hi @Sophie-2e

I'm really sorry for the delay on this, as I was not well and didn't get time to create a video to help you more on this.

Now, regarding the issue with the main taxonomy not being translated properly for the breadcrumb output, could you please make some changes on the WPML plugin settings page to get this done.

You can find out the screencast here: https://www.loom.com/share/05011ddc00f344499d564ad88d2ebae2

1. As first, you can see that plugins like ACF Content Analysis for Yoast SEO, Advanced Custom Fields, WPML Multilingual CMS, WPML SEO, WPML String Translation, and Yoast SEO are set as active
2. Then I went to the ACF > Taxonomies and created a taxonomy named "Tax for testing GH issue" is created
3. From the WPML > Settings > Taxonomies Translation > I selected the radio button for the newly created taxonomy as Translatable
4. Then you can see the parent taxonomy and child taxonomy created on the website with the names "English parent taxonomy" and " English child taxonomy" and the breadcrumb shows correctly for both of them
5. After that, I went to the WPML > Taxonomy translation settings page and created the parent and child pages for the Polish language and by copying the breadcrumb shortcut to the description to display it on the front end.
6. Once after that, I went to the Polish language translated pages on the ACF created Taxonomy, and saved the pages, and selected the primary category on the child taxonomy page.
7. Then, you can see the breadcrumb is outputting as expected on the Polish language page.

We hope this helps.

[Sophie-2e]

Hello @josevarghese,

Thanks but after following your steps issue is still there as this step do not impact the custom taxonomy name:

1. Ok was just missing ACF Content Analysis for Yoast SEO active, so I activated it but it changed nothing, issue still here.
2. Already have my custom taxonomy: https://share.vidyard.com/watch/ReHBWfdK6GvFCGMtTTTmTf?
3. Already set up to 'translatable' in settings: https://share.vidyard.com/watch/ReHBWfdK6GvFCGMtTTTmTf?
4. Yes in english it was already working fine as the issue is fo translated pages anyways
5. Yes it is already how they have been translated: https://share.vidyard.com/watch/ReHBWfdK6GvFCGMtTTTmTf?
6. Did this step that does not seems necessary as it impacts the parent and child categories of the Custom Taxonomy while our issue is with the Custom taxonomy name itself, not the parent or child taxonomies of the Custom taxonomy. So this step changed nothing to my issue as expected.

So again, what we need to translate is the Custom Taxonomy name itself (so in your example how to translate and display in the breadcrumb the proper translation of 'Tax for testing GH issue' ) and not the terms in it, as indeed, we already did that and you have seen in this video that the terms in the Custom Taxonomy are indeed translated properly: https://share.vidyard.com/watch/ReHBWfdK6GvFCGMtTTTmTf?

So how do we translate the Custom Taxonomy (so in your example how to translate and display in the breadcrumb the proper translation of 'Tax for testing GH issue' ) which you did not have in your breadcrumb, so you could not have reproduce the bug. Please review this video in details again: https://share.vidyard.com/watch/ReHBWfdK6GvFCGMtTTTmTf?

Waiting fo your news, Thanks for your help, Sophie

[Sophie-2e]

PS: I did not reshoot a video because even after updates and following your steps it is still the same issue.

[josevarghese]

Hi @Sophie-2e

Thanks for the clarification. The custom taxonomy name is not changing on the breadcrumb for each language version of the page due to this issue: https://github.com/Yoast/wordpress-seo/issues/19739. This issue is already on our development team's radar.

What's next? Our product team will assess feature requests in relation to other open bug reports and new features. Based on their assessment, the feature request will be given a priority level. Our developers work on the highest priority first. Unfortunately, this means we cannot give you an estimate if or when they'll start working on your request.

[JoryHogeveen]

Just for information: Same issue happens with Polylang.

See more in depth remarks here: https://wordpress.org/support/topic/breadcrumb-cpt-archive-translation-issue/#post-17393257

Related issue: #15141 (coming from 2020)

Support is not aware of any temporary solutions in the meantime.

[josevarghese]

@JoryHogeveen

Yes, you're right!

As both issues are now open on GitHub, I'm closing this issue to avoid duplication and further confusion at our end.

[JoryHogeveen]

@josevarghese Closing is fine of course as I can understand that duplicate issues are confusing, though since the issue is already active since 2020, won't it again be forgotten then? The older issue is tagged for v14 and as a minor issue so my impression is that this will be stalled even more by closing this topic as well.

[josevarghese]

Shared more details on this issue here: https://github.com/Yoast/wordpress-seo/issues/15141#issuecomment-1945786977

[Sophie-2e]

For anyone facing the same issue, I found a temporary solution which seems to work fine, until a permanent fix is found:

1. From Wordpress dashboard > In ACF > Go to ACF Taxonomy in your default language
2. Edit the taxonomy you want to edit
3. Switch language in the Wordpress top bar menu
4. Ignore warning message and click on "edit anyway"
5. Edit plural and singular labels with correct translation => save
6. Check your breadcrumb in translated language, it should display the proper translation

@JoryHogeveen I am not sure how Polylang works, but maybe you can follow a similar process to fix the issue on your site.