Multi-language Blog

[APROPLAN]

Multi languages features like Landing pages & website have.

I think it's essential to have a blog in multiple languages.

[JimB_Huble]

@krista_ca, Has anyone implemented the recommendations from this article?

We helped a client roll this out about six months ago.

It didn't work initially and took about a week of back and forth with HubSpot's support team to get right.

I can't remember the specifics, but there was some ambiguity in the instructions that lead to us making a mistake in the code. 

HubSpot's support team was really helpful considering it's all custom coding and technically not something they provide support for. But an out of the box solution would be a heck of a lot simpler! It's hard to see why something so useful can be deployed on website and landing pages but not the blogs. 

[dannio]

It's actually more frustrating the fact we can't choose the language on a specific blog. i.e the language flag on the blog will always be:

lang="en"

I've made dynamic multi-language blocks using conditionals based on the URL. It's messy but it works. However, it would be ideal that instead of this:

{% if (content.slug is string_startingwith "zh-hk/") or (content.slug =="zh-hk") %}

I can just do:

{% if content.language.languageTag == 'zh-hk' %}

But unfortunately, as the concept of language is missing from blogs, that's currently not possible and I have to resort to the messier option.

[Snaedis]

This is in planning - thank you all for your patience!

Additional background and context for anyone interested:

Many have commented that it's weird for HubSpot's page tools to offer a multi-language option while the blog doesn't have that feature. I agree - it doesn't make sense 🙂  The tools look very similar - and the management interface is completely identical across all content tools. But in the back end, the code bases are separate (necessary, as a blog (RSS feed) is inherently different from pages in how it behaves), and there were some other tools (related to the fact that the blog tool uses a single template) that need to be made multi-language friendly before the blog can become multi-language. That's why HubSpot website and landing pages have had the multi-language feature for quite some time while the blog has not. 

My team is eager to provide you with the best possible multi-language blog. We've spoken to many already about their multi-language needs, but we're always looking to hear from more customers. If you're willing to share your thoughts and experiences beyond the comments here (I've read them all!), please book a time to speak with me.

- Snaedis 

[mariekewest]

Hi, Can we get any estimation when this feature wil be added?

Best regards,

Marieke Westerterp

[jochenvp]

Is there a ETA already?

[krista_ca]

Yes please. Any idea when this will be live?

[Snaedis]

Hello everybody, 

Just a quick update on multi-language blog!

This is still in development and is my team's #1 priority. We're very close to having a public beta available, and I'll update this post as soon as that's live so you know how to opt into it. We're planning on making the beta version available to you all in about a month. 

Thank you for your patience and support! We're looking forward to delivering this feature to you, and I'll post again as soon as I have an update. 

- Snaedis 

[Snaedis]

Hi Community members,

I'm excited to say that we now have an early, beta version of multi-language Blog! 

This multi-language blog beta includes: 

• Grouping of blog posts in the user interface (like you see when creating multi-language pages)
• hreflang tags in the source code of blog posts which are grouped (good for SEO)
• Separate email subscriptions for each blog language
• Different page titles, meta descriptions for each language, managed in Blog Settings

Not yet included, but currently in development, support for multi-language: 

• Authors
• Tags

If you would like access to the beta version of multi-language blog, please message me here, or email me directly (svalsdottir@hubspot.com ) with your HubSpot portal ID number. 

I'll post again when I have another update to share. 

- Snaedis 

svalsdottir@hubspot.com 

[dannio]

Hi all,

I just tried this Beta and it seems to work like pages so that's good. However, there's still no language switcher, or language variables available in hubl. Unfortunately, we will still have to deal with messy conditionals for the time being.

[benvanlooy]

urgh, maybe it's me, but it's really not that hard to get it all to work correctly..

Sometimes I wonder if the developers actually test & use real life usecases... 

[dannio]

@benvanlooy the thing that bugs me is that for some reason, if I make a language variation of a page, and in my hubl code I check for ['translated_lang'].slug, it will still return to me a slug even if the language variation HASN'T been published. Makes custom coding language menus infinite times harder since most the time I need to make sure that the language variation has been published at the same time.

However, that's a problem for another topic.

For this feature, I tried putting the hubspot default language switcher into the template and it showed nothing. Then I tried dumping the {{ content.language }} variable and still got nothing. Really hoping they add this on the release, otherwise, we're pretty much back where we started.

[dgil89]

I haven't been able to access to the multi-lingual feature... every time I click on create a multi-language variation it asks me to set it up on setting, yet again there is not a spot where I can set it up... am I missing something? 

[Snaedis]

@dgil8 when you're brought to the Blog Settings, click on the  Language option in order to add a new language for this blog. Then you'll be able to set the settings for that language and go back to create a multi-language variation for a blog post:

[dgil89]

@Snaedis that option is not showing in my blog settings, now that I think about it, I haven't even gotten a message to join the beta even tho I requested it

[Snaedis]

Sorry @dgil89! I missed your request but see it now - you should be all set. 

[Tavis]

Does anyone know if tags have been incorporated into the multi-language blog beta yet?

[Snaedis]

@Tavis Tags and Authors aren't in the beta yet, but they're in development! 

[oSaid]

Given the topic cluster model, while avoiding being perceived by the search engines of posting duplicate content, this feature is an absolute necessity!!!

[M0zz0]

Hi, I'm trying out the multilanguage blog and everything is working as expected except for the blog homepage (the listing page) here I can't see the language switcher that redirects me to the other languages, is this a bug?

[Snaedis]

Multi-language blog is currently available to 65% of all portals, and we'll continue to expand the beta until it's available to everyone!

The knowledge base article on creating multi-language blog is now indexed, so you and your team members can find it through searching our knowledge base as usual. 

Here's an overview of the status on different parts of the multi-language blog feature: 

Included at this time:

• Posts can be grouped and hreflang tags are included
• Blog settings (including header, page title, meta description, root URL) can be set for each language
• Global content can be set to different languages using global content editing
• The language switcher module can be added to your template and works for blog posts
• Blog subscriptions can be managed for each language of the blog

Still to come:

• Multi-language Authors and Tags (in development)
• Update to make the language switcher work on the blog listing page (in development)
• Ability to group existing posts from other blogs (this will let users who have 'separate' blogs for their different languages combine their existing posts)
• Ability to import into a multi-language blog (it will probably be a few more months before work can begin on this one)

Thank you to everyone who has shared feedback and suggestions. Please continue to share your thoughts with me, either here in the comments or directly: svalsdottir@hubspot.com

- Snaedis