Using Gloty

SEO

Since 1.8.0 Gloty follows Google's international SEO guidance out of the box. Everything on this page is on by default and configured at Gloty → SEO; you mostly need to know it is there and leave it alone.

The four toggles

Setting	What it emits	Default
Output hreflang tags	On every page, a reciprocal `<link rel="alternate" hreflang="…">` for each active language plus an `x-default`.	On
Translate metadata & Open Graph	A translated meta description plus Open Graph and Twitter Card tags — title, description, locale, alternates, image.	On
Add alternate languages to the sitemap	`<xhtml:link rel="alternate">` entries in the WordPress XML sitemap for posts and taxonomy terms.	On
Output language schema (JSON-LD)	A schema.org `WebSite` block declaring the page language with `inLanguage`.	On

hreflang

hreflang is the single most important multilingual SEO signal: it tells search engines that your pages are the same content in different languages, so they serve the right one and do not treat the set as duplicates.

Gloty emits, on every language version of a page:

One hreflang entry for every active language, including the page's own — annotations must be reciprocal and self-referential to be valid.
An x-default entry pointing at the unprefixed source-language URL, for visitors whose language you do not publish.

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.com/shop/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="de" href="https://example.com/de/shop/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="fr" href="https://example.com/fr/shop/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.com/shop/" />

Verify it. Our free hreflang checker fetches a URL and reports missing, non-reciprocal, or malformed annotations. Google Search Console's International Targeting report is the other place to watch.

Canonicals and language attributes

Each translated page is self-canonical:

/de/shop/ declares <link rel="canonical" href="…/de/shop/"> — not the source URL. Pointing translations at the source would ask Google to drop them from the index.
The document declares <html lang="de">, which also drives screen-reader pronunciation and browser translation prompts. 1.3.1

Titles, descriptions, and social tags

Translated <title> and meta description come from your existing translations — there is no separate remote call at render time. Gloty also emits Open Graph and Twitter Card tags so a link shared in the visitor's language previews in that language.

With Yoast SEO or Rank Math

When either plugin is active, Gloty translates their output instead of emitting its own, so you never get duplicate tags. That covers meta titles and descriptions, Open Graph and Twitter tags, breadcrumbs, and canonical URLs. Untranslated SEO strings are captured and translated by the normal background pipeline like any other string.

SEO text is translated like everything else. A brand-new meta description will not appear translated instantly — it is discovered, queued, and translated in the background, then served from cache from that point on.

Sitemaps

The WordPress XML sitemap gains <xhtml:link rel="alternate"> entries declaring each translated URL for posts and taxonomy terms, which is how search engines discover language variants without crawling your switcher.

If you use a third-party sitemap from an SEO plugin, submit that one to Search Console as usual and rely on the on-page hreflang annotations, which are always present.

URL structure and SEO

Subdirectory URLs (/de/) are the recommended structure and the Gloty default. They give each language a stable, linkable, independently indexable address. The query-parameter mode exists as a compatibility fallback and is weaker for SEO — see Languages & URLs.

Slugs stay in the source language for now: /de/about-us/. Translated slugs are planned for a future release.

An SEO checklist for launch

Confirm the four SEO toggles are on at Gloty → SEO.
View source on one translated page and confirm html lang, canonical, and the full set of hreflang tags including x-default.
Check that important pages are actually translated before you promote the language — a half-translated page indexes badly.
Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console.
Only then consider enabling automatic redirection. Crawlers are exempt from it, but there is no reason to redirect humans into an incomplete language.
Give the switcher a visible, consistent placement — internal links between language versions help discovery.

Our multilingual SEO checklist goes into more depth on the strategy side.

Last updated 26 July 2026 · Gloty 1.15.2