About this plugin
COCOS Translate makes your site bilingual without touching your theme or your content structure: it translates your site from its default language into one translation language of your choice. You can change the translation language at any time.
Core features:
- Whole-page translation. The rendered HTML is buffered, parsed and every visible text node plus common attributes (alt, title, placeholder, aria-label, meta descriptions, Open Graph / Twitter tags) is replaced with its translation.
- Live translation of JS-rendered content. A client-side layer (MutationObserver) translates content injected after page load – WooCommerce Cart/Checkout blocks, Gutenberg-hydrated blocks, AJAX fragments – using the same dictionary, and reports unknown strings so they get translated on the next visit.
- Visual front-end editor. Open any page in edit mode, click a string, type the translation, save. Works for content, menus, widgets, theme strings.
- gettext translation. Theme and plugin strings that pass through __() / _e() are translatable too.
- Machine translation. Google Cloud Translation v2 with your own API key. Translate on demand from the editor, in bulk from the admin, or automatically in the background via WP-Cron. (Other engines are available in COCOS Translate PRO, a separate plugin.)
- SEO-friendly URLs. The translated pages live under their own path prefix (e.g. /fr/ ). hreflang alternate links, x-default, translated <html lang> / dir and localized permalinks are handled for you.
- Language switcher. Shortcode [cc_transla_switcher], a widget, a cc_transla_language_switcher() template tag, an optional floating switcher and optional nav-menu injection.
- Built-in page cache for anonymous visitors so translated pages are served without re-parsing.
External services
This plugin can send text to an external machine-translation service. It does so only if you choose “Google Translate” as the machine-translation engine and enter your own API key under Settings → COCOS Translate → Machine translation. With the engine set to “None” (the default), the plugin makes no external requests.
Google Cloud Translation API (v2)
- What it is / what it is used for: Google’s machine-translation service, used to translate the strings of your site (page text, menu items, widget text and similar) into your translation language.
- What data is sent and when: the text strings to be translated, the source and target language codes, and your Google API key. This happens when you click the machine-translate button in the visual editor, run a bulk “Auto-translate” from the admin, or when automatic background translation (WP-Cron) or translate-on-access is enabled. No visitor personal data is sent — only the site strings that are missing a translation.
- Service provider: Google LLC. Terms of Service · Privacy Policy · Cloud Privacy Notice
codes in this readme and in the plugin’s admin screens are ordinary hyperlinks; the plugin does not contact that site in the background.
Notes / limitations
- URL translation uses the sub-directory method ( example.com/fr/… ). Sub-domains and separate domains are not supported.
- On sites with a full-page caching layer in front of PHP, exclude the?cc-transla-edit requests from that cache.
- Very large string tables load into memory per request; let the built-in page cache do its job.
COCOS Translate PRO
This plugin translates your site into one language, with Google Translate on your
own API key. codes) is a separate
paid plugin for sites in several languages. It offers:
- Several translation languages per site.
- One-click AI translation through the COCOS Translate proxy — Google, DeepL,
OpenAI, Claude and Gemini with no provider API keys to manage.
- A monthly AI phrase quota with optional top-up packs.
- Priority support and automatic updates from translate.cocos.codes.
org.