How to use Weglot with Shopify Markets?

This article explains what Shopify Markets is and how to make it work with Weglot.

What is Shopify Markets?
Is Weglot compatible with Shopify Markets?
How to integrate Weglot with Shopify Markets?

What is Shopify Markets?

Shopify Markets allows you to create and manage international e-markets from your Shopify store, making it easy to sell products in multiple countries. Users can manage all their storefronts from one Shopify shop.

To learn more about Shopify Markets, click here.

Is Weglot compatible with Shopify Markets?

Yes, Weglot is compatible with Shopify Markets!

Weglot supports this through a subdirectory integration, where your translated pages are displayed under subdirectories such as https://website.com/en/ .

Shopify Markets URLs include both market and language information, which are independent of each other and separated by a dash.

Here's how the URL structure would look:

https://website.com/[Weglot-language]-[Shopify-Market]

So, the URLs could be:

https://website.com/fr-ca (for a French-translated page for the Canadian market)

https://website.com/en-ca (for an English-translated page for the Canadian market)

How to integrate Weglot with Shopify Markets?

After setup, please contact us at support@weglot.com. We'll need to apply special settings on our side to ensure Weglot works perfectly with the Shopify Markets feature.

If you haven't any Shopify Market set up, you can take a look at this article from Shopify.

This will help you to manage your Markets.

If you already have Markets set up, you can go to the following "Before you begin" section.

Before you begin:

In your Shopify admin, choose to use subfolder-type URLs for your Markets. Subfolder-type URLs are URLs like "mysite.com/de" for the German version of your market.
You can choose this type of URL by going to your Shopify admin > Settings > Markets.
Once here, click on the targeted market, then go to the "Market settings" and "Languages and domains".
The next step is to go to "Manage domains", choose "Use subfolders" and choose a domain suffix.
Shopify languages are different from Weglot and are using the Shopify Translation API. Using them can lead to some conflicts in the code and the translation.
To avoid any potential conflicts, please unpublish and delete additional languages, you can access them on your Shopify admin. Go to your Shopify Admin > Settings (in the bottom left) > Languages.
For this integration to work, you must manage your own domain name and not use a Shopify subdomain (with the URL ending with .myshopify.com ).
You need access to your DNS provider to add or modify DNS records. This is usually where you manage your domain, like Shopify, GoDaddy, or Google Domains.

Setup

Now that you're ready, activate the subdirectory integration in your Weglot project.

Go to your Weglot Dashboard > Settings > Setup and click on the "Subdomains / Subdirectories" toggle button.

If you were using the subdomain integration, doing this will deactivate it. Once this is done, click on the same button to launch the setup for the subdirectory integration.

Next, provide your domain name URL. In the URL Type section, select "Subdirectories" in the dropdown menu.

Click on "Next", and you'll be brought to "Your DNS settings."

Your DNS settings

First, you will have to add the following DNS record in your DNS provider:

host (or name) > cloudflare-verify

type > TXT

value > will be given to you during the subdirectory setup process on Weglot

After adding the new DNS record to your DNS provider, go back to your Weglot account and click on "Check DNS".
Wait a few minutes for the SSL certificate to be validated. To check if this has been done, click on "Check DNS".
A new DNS entry will appear on your screen. Modify the existing DNS record in your registrar with the value Weglot gave.

The DNS record you need to change depends on whether your URL uses a subdomain (e.g., www.mysite.com) or not (e.g., mysite.com).

If you wish to remove the subdirectories integration, set this DNS record back to its previous value before deactivating the integration. We recommend taking a screenshot of your current settings before modifying them. In any case, Weglot will warn you about this should you attempt to deactivate the integration.

If you don't have a subdomain in your URL (e.g., mysite.com):

The second DNS record will ask you to modify your A record.

Hover over the value to copy it in your clipboard

You should only have one A record, so update the existing one with the value from Weglot. You don’t have to create a new one. This allows Weglot to add subdirectories and create translations on the server side.

If you have a subdomain in your URL (e.g. www.mysite.com):

The second DNS record will ask you to modify a CNAME record.

The process is the same as adding the first DNS record, but you'll add a different one. Depending on your setup, the subdomain might be an A record, but the value must always be updated.

Once you have modified the second DNS, save the changes and click on "Check DNS".

Confirmation

Your subdirectories will be ready to launch in a few minutes.

Note that it can take up to an hour for the subdirectory integration to fully deploy.

After setting up the subdirectory integration, contact us at support@weglot.com. We'll apply special settings to ensure that Weglot works perfectly with the Markets feature.

Once Weglot is working well on your Shopify Markets store, you can look at this article we made to optimize your use of Weglot on this store (translate dynamic content, checkout, and mail notifications).

If you encounter any issues during the process, do not hesitate to contact us at support@weglot.com.