- Weglot — what it means
- Weglot is a translation service that works with many no-code tools, including Webflow, Wix and Shopify. It handles everything from translation to SEO in roughly one click, and integrates with Webflow at the app level.
- “I want to make a site built in Webflow multilingual”
- “I want to know how to use Weglot, explained properly”
- “I do not know how to fix it when the translation does not appear”
This article solves those problems.
Weglot works not only with Webflow but with many no-code tools such as Wix and Shopify, and it handles everything from translation to SEO in roughly one click. A fine piece of work.
This article collects how to use Weglot, and how to put Weglot to work in Webflow. It draws on my own experience of using it, and on what the Weglot support team told me.
The second half covers the upsides and downsides of Weglot, and the SEO results I actually got from using it.
Let’s get into it.
What this complete guide covers
These were originally separate articles by topic, merged into this single guide in July 2026. Installation, exclusion settings, what to do when the translation does not appear, and the subdirectory trick — read from the top and you will be able to use the whole thing.
How to install Weglot on a site built in Webflow
- Sign up for Weglot
- Set the DNS
- Paste the JS into your website
- Installation complete
I will take them in order.
Step 1: sign up for Weglot
From the linked page, click “Try for free” and start with the free trial.
For the first week Weglot translates up to 10,000 characters free. After that you move automatically to the free plan, downgraded to 2,000 characters, so I recommend learning your way around in that first week and then paying.
Step 2: follow the order Weglot shows you
From the top, enter
- the domain of the site you want to translate
- the original language
- the language you want to translate into
in that order.
Step 3: set the Weglot DNS
DNS sounds slightly daunting, but it just means settings on the domain side. Open the dashboard for the domain you own. I use Google Domains, so I will walk through it there.
Open Google Domains, open the DNS section, and you can add DNS through custom records. In my case the Webflow DNS is already set, so the Weglot DNS gets added alongside it. That creates the Weglot subdomain. Go back to Weglot, and once the DNS has been read, move to the next step.
Using subdirectories in Weglot (later in this article)
Step 4: paste the JS code into your site
Every no-code tool has a setting for the <head> tag. In Webflow it is in the custom code field under the site settings. Paste in the code shown there and the installation is done.
How to exclude pages from Weglot translation, to control cost
Enter the URLs you want excluded under “Setting → Translation exclusion” in Weglot, and the exclusion is done.
After setting it, check under Translation that the URL is excluded — that a line has been struck through it.
- Note: if you are over your Weglot character count, or on the free plan, Weglot stops, so it appears not to display correctly.
After setting the exclusion, also delete the excluded pages under “Translation → URL”.
How to exclude everything except one page from Weglot translation
Set it up using the image as a guide.
- ^(?!\/the-url-you-want\/).*
Setting it as in the image translates only the pages under /posts and excludes everything else.
Put the URL of the page you want translated in place of “the-url-you-want”, and every other page is excluded from translation. That keeps the character count down, and the cost with it.
You can also use
- ^(?!\/posts).*
to exclude the /posts pages as well.
How to count the characters across a whole site
The tool below counts the characters across an entire site. Filters let you measure only the pages you care about, which pairs perfectly with Weglot.
“Weglot is not translating!” — how to fix it
I ran into the bugs below in Weglot. They may have been fixed in an update, but here are the fixes for anyone who is stuck.
- Nothing gets translated
- The URL does not change when you open the translated page
- The subdirectory cannot be deleted
Here is how to fix each of those.
How to fix Weglot bugs
When nothing gets translated
This bug tends to happen in one of two situations.
- You are over the translation character limit
- The URL has not been scanned
1. You are over the translation character limit
Weglot appears to stop working once you exceed the character count.
So limit which pages get translated and keep within the count. How to limit which pages are translated →
2. The URL has not been scanned
Sometimes a page stops being translated after you delete or exclude a translation. In that case, scan your own site from “Missing a URL? Scan your website.” at the bottom of “Translation → URLs”.
That brings the translation back.
When the URL does not change on the translated page
This bug tends to happen in the following situations.
- You are over the translation character limit
- You have only just installed it
1. You are over the translation character limit
As above, going over the translation limit stops the feature, which can produce the bug where the URL does not change.
How to limit which pages are translated →
2. You have only just installed it
Straight after installation the URL sometimes does not switch properly. Leave it 24 hours and see.
When the subdirectory cannot be deleted
There is a bug where a subdirectory added in Webflow cannot be deleted.
It says “DNS settings remain”, but the same message appears even when you have deleted all of them. Contact support and have them delete it.
How to use Weglot subdirectories in Webflow (the workaround)
- First, log in to or sign up for Weglot
- Open Setup and turn subdomains off
- Open the link (this is the trick)
- A new subdirectory option appears
- Follow the steps to configure it
That is the flow. Let’s look at it in detail.
1. Sign up for Weglot
From the linked page, click “Try for free” and start with the free trial.
For the first week Weglot translates up to 10,000 characters free. After that you move automatically to the free plan, downgraded to 2,000 characters, so I recommend learning your way around in that first week and then paying.
2. Open Setup and turn subdomains off
Go to the Weglot dashboard and disable subdomains from Setup.
3. Open the link (this is the trick)
The Setup screen you first configured in Weglot then appears. At that point, open the subdirectory-only URL.
4. A new subdirectory option appears
A new box appears, and subdirectories become selectable.
5. Follow the steps to configure it
Set the DNS as instructed and the subdirectory is installed. With a subdirectory there are two DNS settings.
You also have to set the “www” for SSL. But if you are using Webflow, you have already set “www” in Webflow, so only one of the two can be set. Weglot support states that they would like the Weglot “www” to take priority.
Personally I would rather have set the Webflow one, but I switched to Weglot. (Webflow then throws an error.)
The upsides and downsides of Weglot
The upsides of Weglot
Easy to install
Reaches languages you do not speak
SEO handled properly
The downsides of Weglot
Expensive
Google Translate stops working across the whole site
What actually happened when I used Weglot
- What SEO rankings did Weglot get overseas?
- Does straight translation increase traffic from abroad?
The short answer: traffic from abroad did increase. I began running this site in multiple languages with Weglot, then moved to Webflow’s native Localization and kept going with Japanese to Korean. Page views from Korea grew, and a handful of Webflow affiliate conversions came through. My honest impression is that with a topic like Webflow, where many users are outside Japan, straight translation can bring in a certain amount of traffic.
The business result, though, told honestly: in roughly two years of running it, we received zero web production inquiries and won zero work. Search volume in Korea skews to NAVER rather than Google, so the pool of searches was small; the machine-translated Korean still read unnaturally in places; and we had nobody able to handle a Korean-language inquiry in the first place. “Traffic came, revenue did not” is my measured result.
Cost matters too. At the time I was paying just under ¥100,000 a year for the Webflow subscription with Localization included. After switching the site itself to AI production, the running cost is ¥1,500 a year for the domain and nothing else.
My conclusion as of 2026 is that going multilingual is more realistic when you have AI translate every page and run it yourself, rather than paying a translation tool every month. Weglot is attractive for its three-minute setup and is still an option if you want a tool to handle everything, but check the monthly cost and the machine translation quality before you commit.
For the specific numbers behind the decision to withdraw, and what I did next, see the measured write-up on Korean localization.
FAQ
Is Weglot free to use?
The first week is a free trial that translates up to 10,000 characters. After that you move automatically to the free plan, which covers 2,000 characters. Learning your way around in that first week and then paying is the approach I recommend.
What should I check when Weglot does not translate?
First, whether you are over your plan’s character limit; second, whether the URL has been scanned. Scanning from “Missing a URL? Scan your website.” at the bottom of Translation → URLs gets the translation working again.
How do I translate only certain pages and keep the cost down?
Enter the URLs you want excluded under Setting → Translation exclusion. The regex ^(?!\/the-url-you-want\/).* excludes everything except the page you name, which keeps both the character count and the cost down.
How does Weglot compare with Webflow’s native Localization?
Weglot is easy to install and supports many no-code tools, but the monthly cost is on the high side. I moved from Weglot to Webflow Localization and then to running AI translation myself. The first-hand comparison is linked at the end of the article.
What if a Weglot subdirectory cannot be deleted?
There is a bug where the message “DNS settings remain” appears even after you have deleted every DNS record. You cannot remove it yourself in that case, so contact Weglot support and have them delete it.
