Hayden

How Polylang Saved My Blog! In this post, I’ll share how duplicate content was eating away at my AdSense revenue, and how the WordPress Polylang plugin saved the day. I’m sharing a pretty painful experience I went through recently. It’s all about the duplicate content issues I faced and how I managed to solve them using the Polylang plugin. If you’re dealing with something similar, I hope my story can help you out.

 

 

1. How the Disaster Began – Duplicate Content Killing My AdSense Revenue

Initially, I thought it was a brilliant idea. “What if I translate my blog content into English to attract international readers?” That’s exactly what I started doing—translating my existing posts and publishing them on the same site.

The results were devastating. Search engines may interpret pages as duplicate content when hreflang links are missing or not properly implemented, which can negatively impact SEO and rankings of those pages. This is exactly what happened to me.

The shocking changes I experienced:

  • Dramatic decrease in impressions on Google Search Console
  • AdSense revenue dropped to 30% of previous levels
  • Keywords that previously ranked well started plummeting
  • Overall organic traffic decline

I was completely lost. I knew something was seriously wrong, but couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was causing the problem.

 

 

2. The Scary Reality of Duplicate Content

Improper hreflang tag implementation causes duplicate content errors. While Google doesn’t directly penalize duplicate content, it doesn’t want an English page designed for Americans to rank higher than a page targeting English speakers in France.

Here’s exactly what I did wrong:

Incorrect multilingual content structure:

  • Publishing content in different languages on the same domain without proper setup
  • Uploading translations without hreflang tags
  • Creating translated posts without proper URL structure
  • Leaving duplicate content without canonical tag settings

Google uses the visible content of your page to determine its language. We don’t use any code-level language information such as lang attributes, or the URL. This means Google saw my English and original posts as duplicate content rather than alternative language versions.

 

 

3. Polylang Plugin to the Rescue

After extensive research and troubleshooting, I discovered the Polylang plugin. Polylang is compatible with major SEO plugins and automatically takes care of multilingual SEO such as html hreflang tags and opengraph tags.

Key features of Polylang plugin:

  • Automatic hreflang tag generation: Clearly tells Google about relationships between language versions
  • Language-specific URL structure: Systematic management with example.com/en/, example.com/es/ format
  • SEO plugin integration: Perfect compatibility with Yoast SEO, RankMath, etc.
  • Translation management: Integrated management of posts, pages, menus, and widgets

Polylang Pro allows you to choose from subdirectories, subdomains, or separate domains for each language: “example.com/en/”, “en.example.com”, “example.fr”. I chose the subdirectory approach.

 

 

4. Polylang Setup Process and Important Considerations

Step 1: Plugin Installation and Basic Setup

After installing Polylang, the first thing I did was configure the languages. There is a simple wizard to follow that allows you to add the languages of your choice.

English (default): en_US
Spanish: es_ES
URL structure: /en/, /es/

Step 2: Assigning Languages to Existing Content

This was the most crucial part. For all previously published posts:

  • English posts → Designated as English
  • Spanish posts → Designated as Spanish
  • Set up translation relationships between them

Step 3: Verifying hreflang Tags

Each language version must list itself as well as all other language versions. While Polylang handles this automatically, it’s good practice to verify manually.

<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.com/en/post-title/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="es" href="https://example.com/es/post-title/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.com/en/post-title/" />

 

5. Additional Strategies for AdSense Revenue Recovery

Even after setting up Polylang, there were several other aspects I needed to address for revenue recovery.

Immediate recovery strategies I implemented:

The first step to identify causes of revenue decrease is understanding the key metrics that affect revenue. Generally, metrics like CPC (Cost Per Click), CTR, and impressions are important.

  1. Enhanced Search Console Monitoring
    • Daily checks of indexing status
    • Crawling requests for new URL structure
    • Sitemap resubmission
  2. User Experience Improvements
    • Added language switcher menu
    • Optimized page loading speeds
    • Verified mobile responsiveness
  3. Content Quality Enhancement You shouldn’t fill your site with low-quality content just to create a 100-page index for revenue purposes. I reviewed and improved the quality of existing translated content.

 

 

6. Actual Results and Revenue Recovery Timeline

About 2-3 weeks after implementing Polylang, I started seeing gradual improvements:

Week 1: Google Search Console began crawling new URL structure Week 2: Decreased indexing errors, proper hreflang tag recognition Week 3: Recovery in impressions began, AdSense revenue showed positive signals Week 4: Nearly back to previous levels, some keywords ranked even better

The issue of page dispersion affecting ad serving rates and bid prices was resolved, significantly improving AdSense performance.

 

 

7. Important Considerations When Using Polylang

Critical mistakes to avoid:

  1. Don’t leave some pages untranslated All important pages (privacy policy, contact, etc.) must be translated.
  2. Don’t change URL structure mid-way Once you’ve chosen a structure (/en/, /es/), stick with it.
  3. Don’t over-rely on automatic translation Excessive dependence on AI should be avoided. Both Google and other search engines ultimately favor high-quality content that appears to be written by humans.
  4. Don’t forget sitemap updates Submit sitemaps that match your new language structure.

 

 

8. Final Recommendations

If you’re running a multilingual site, start with proper structure from day one. The commonly implemented method is configuring multilingual site URLs in the format example.com/de/ and setting up rel-alternate-hreflang for the corresponding content language.

Checklist for successful multilingual blogging:

  • ✅ Systematic language management with Polylang or similar plugins
  • ✅ Unique URL structure for each language
  • ✅ Automatic hreflang tag generation verification
  • ✅ Complete translation of all important pages
  • ✅ User-friendly language switcher placement
  • ✅ Customized SEO optimization for each language

 

I hope my experience helps you avoid the same mistakes. Running a multilingual site is challenging, but with the right tools and methods, it can actually yield better results. If you’re struggling with similar issues, don’t hesitate to install Polylang right away!

 

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