Install Linguise on a website that runs PHP

Technical requirements

In order to run the Linguise translation script, you’ll need the following:

Run PHP 7+
Apache, LiteSpeed, NGINX, IIS server
Activate the URL rewriting in your server configuration

How to install the script in video

1. Generate the API Key

After your connection to your Linguise dashboard you’ll need to setup a new domain first and save it’s settings to get the API Key.

The API key is what is required to activate the translation on your website. Basically, the API key will check what language is activated on what domain and will allow the neural translation pages to be generated.

Copy the API Key and keep it in your clipboard.

Then by clicking on the tab “Script PHP” you’ll get the installation instructions we’ll follow here in details.

2. Upload and connect the Linguise translation script

The Linguise translation script needs to be uploaded on your server, can be downloaded here:

After the script is downloaded, unzip it and upload it to the root folder where the CMS is installed.

Make sure it’s at the root level of your website (usually where your CMS files are located)
Make sure the folder is called “linguise” (the default name when the folder is unzipped)

The Linguise API key will need to be copied in the folder: …/linguise/Configuration.php file you’ve uploaded on your server, edit the file and copy your API Key between the simple quotes, replace the text REPLACE_BY_TOUR TOKEN.

3. Setup the language URLs

The URL by language needs to be configured in the .htaccess file. If you have a “RewriteBase /” in your file just copy after that all the following code. It’s better to place the code at the beginning of the file:

				
					<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
  RewriteEngine On
  RewriteRule ^(af|sq|am|ar|hy|az|eu|be|bn|bs|bg|ca|ceb|ny|zh-cn|zh-tw|co|hr|cs|da|nl|en|eo|et|tl|fi|fr|fy|gl|ka|de|el|gu|ht|ha|haw|iw|hi|hmn|hu|is|ig|id|ga|it|ja|jw|kn|kk|km|ko|ku|ky|lo|la|lv|lt|lb|mk|mg|ms|ml|mt|mi|mr|mn|my|ne|no|ps|fa|pl|pt|pa|ro|ru|sm|gd|sr|st|sn|sd|si|sk|sl|so|es|su|sw|sv|tg|ta|te|th|tr|uk|ur|uz|vi|cy|xh|yi|yo|zu|zz-zz)(?:$|/)(.*)$ linguise/linguise.php?linguise_language=$1&original_url=$2 [L,QSA]
</IfModule>

4. Activate the language switcher

The language switcher is the flag popup to select the language you want. To load it, you’ll need to copy the code given to load the script anywhere in your website configuration or template file.

The most important is to load the script in all your pages, in the head section.

The language switcher will be displayed by default in a floating bottom right position on your website. You are welcome to customize it from the Linguise dashboard.

SEO important note: The number of languages you setup has a large impact on SEO. When you setup your translation languages, if you have a large amount of indexed pages (>500), search engine may take a lot of time to process them. It may impact your SEO in your original language. That’s why we recommend adding at first a maximum of 5 languages, then when it’s indexed, you can add languages in a batch of 3 per month.

Setup the language switcher

The language switcher can be customized from the Linguise dashboard > Settings > Language flags display. Every modification here will be reflected on the website.

On the right side of the screen you have the preview of the language switcher. Here are the elements you can setup:

3 layouts: side by side, dropdown or popup
The language switcher position
The language switcher content
Language names in English or native language
Flags shapes and size
Colors and box shadow

Activate local cache system

As an option, you can activate a local cache system that stores URLs and its related multilingual content to serve the pages faster. The local cache will save some data transfer between Linguise server and your website server. The cache is used only when a page has already been translated and has not been updated. The cache kept in priority will be the cache from the most viewed multilingual pages.

As an option, you can define the amount of cache stored in MB. In the following example the cache is activated and the amount of cache to keep is 500MB:

				
					    /** Basic configuration **/
    public $cache_enabled = true;
    public $cache_max_size = 500; // In megabyte

Automatic translation on Windows IIS servers

Add the line corresponding to your website builder in your Web.config file.
It should be set before any other redirection, especially the redirection to your PHP main file:

				
					<rule name="Linguise" stopProcessing="true">
<match url="^(af|sq|am|ar|hy|az|eu|be|bn|bs|bg|ca|ceb|ny|zh-cn|zh-tw|co|hr|cs|da|nl|en|eo|et|tl|fi|fr|fy|gl|ka|de|el|gu|ht|ha|haw|iw|hi|hmn|hu|is|ig|id|ga|it|ja|jw|kn|kk|km|ko|ku|ky|lo|la|lv|lt|lb|mk|mg|ms|ml|mt|mi|mr|mn|my|ne|no|ps|fa|pl|pt|pa|ro|ru|sm|gd|sr|st|sn|sd|si|sk|sl|so|es|su|sw|sv|tg|ta|te|th|tr|uk|ur|uz|vi|cy|xh|yi|yo|zu|zz-zz)(?:$|/)(.*)$" ignoreCase="false" />
        <conditions logicalGrouping="MatchAll" trackAllCaptures="false" />
            <action type="Rewrite" url="linguise/linguise.php?linguise_language={R:1}&amp;original_url={R:2}" appendQueryString="true" />
</rule>

Automatic translation on NGINX servers

Add the line corresponding to your CMS in your NGINX server configuration block.

It should be set before any other redirection, especially the redirection in your PHP main file.

				
					rewrite ^/(af|sq|am|ar|hy|az|eu|be|bn|bs|bg|ca|ceb|ny|zh-cn|zh-tw|co|hr|cs|da|nl|en|eo|et|tl|fi|fr|fy|gl|ka|de|el|gu|ht|ha|haw|iw|hi|hmn|hu|is|ig|id|ga|it|ja|jw|kn|kk|km|ko|ku|ky|lo|la|lv|lt|lb|mk|mg|ms|ml|mt|mi|mr|mn|my|ne|no|ps|fa|pl|pt|pa|ro|ru|sm|gd|sr|st|sn|sd|si|sk|sl|so|es|su|sw|sv|tg|ta|te|th|tr|uk|ur|uz|vi|cy|xh|yi|yo|zu|zz-zz)(?:$|/)(.*)$ /linguise/linguise.php?linguise_language=$1&original_url=$2 last;