Migrate from Falang — your translations and your translated URLs come with you

Falang keeps things tidy: one page, with its translations stored right next to it. This page is the honest version of what moving to TranslateRocket — a free multilingual WordPress plugin — actually involves: what comes across, what does not, and how long it takes.

What this plugin does — and where it stops

Falang does not duplicate your pages. Each post keeps its translations as extra fields on the post itself, and you translate field by field. It is a clean model — and it is also why nothing leaves Falang easily: there are no copies to export, only fields most tools never look at.

Where your translations actually live

Every translated field sits on the original post, named after the language: _it_IT_post_title, _it_IT_post_content, _it_IT_post_name for the address, and _it_IT_published, which says whether that translation is live. Categories and tags keep theirs the same way, menu items too, and the site title and widget texts live in a hidden post per language.

What comes across

• Titles, excerpts and body content of posts, pages and custom post types.
• Your translated URLs: /it/chi-siamo/ stays /it/chi-siamo/, so the links search engines already know keep working.
• Category and tag names and descriptions.
• Menu labels you typed by hand.
• The site title and the widget texts you translated in Falang.
• Only what Falang itself shows. A translation you left unpublished stays out, and an empty field — which Falang reads as “use the original” — is not imported as a translation.

Two details we checked against Falang’s own code, because they decide whether an import is right or merely looks right. Falang’s language list shares its taxonomy with Polylang’s, so only the languages Falang itself registered are read. And date and time formats sit among Falang’s translated strings: they are settings, not text, so they are left out rather than “translated” into something that breaks your dates.

How to migrate, step by step

1. Back up your site. Nothing here modifies your content, but a migration without a backup is a bad habit whatever the tool.
2. Install TranslateRocket from wordpress.org. It is free and there is no account to create.
3. Pick your languages in TranslateRocket → Languages: the language your site is written in, and the ones you already have translations for.
4. Open TranslateRocket → Import. The screen looks at your site and tells you what it found, with a count. If it says nothing was detected, nothing is guessed at.
5. Press the import button for this plugin and let it run. Your original content is untouched.
6. Fill the gaps for free. Whatever the old plugin never covered — menus, theme strings, WooCommerce — can be translated with the translator built into Chrome and Edge: no API key, no account, nothing sent anywhere. We timed it: 464 strings in 42 seconds.
7. Check it, then remove the old plugin when you are satisfied — not before.

What life looks like afterwards

Your pages keep one set of content, as with Falang, and gain what Falang left to you: the parts of the site you never translated — theme strings, plugin texts, WooCommerce — are picked up automatically as you browse, and can be translated for free with the translator built into Chrome and Edge.

You also get the things a translation plugin is judged on once the novelty wears off: /es/-style URLs with correct hreflang, translated slugs, a language switcher as a shortcode, block or widget, per-page visibility rules, and a translation memory so the same sentence is never translated twice.

Questions people ask before switching

Do I have to keep Falang active for the import?

No. The translations are read straight from your database, so the import works with Falang active, deactivated or deleted. After switching it off, TranslateRocket also rebuilds WordPress’s address rules, so no page is left pointing to the home page.

Will my Italian URLs change?

No. The translated address of each page is imported, so /it/chi-siamo/ keeps answering after the switch.

What about translations I had not published yet?

They stay out. Falang shows the original for an unpublished translation, and the import does the same.

Is TranslateRocket free?

Yes. There is no paid version, no language limit and no word limit, and you can translate without an API key using the translator built into Chrome and Edge.

Coming from something else? WPML · Polylang · TranslatePress · Weglot · Loco Translate · Bogo · WPGlobus · WP Multilang · Multilanguage · qTranslate · Falang · Sublanguage