Yoast and Polylang Alt tags issue

@albridi

We understand Yoast failed to detect the images and alt tags on the translated page while it’s fine for the main page.

Is the images being inserted in the main page and the translated page are exactly the same way and same images?

Have you completed the SEO Data Optimization via SEO > Tools page?

On the translated page do you see any JavaScript errors in your browser console?

Clear all your caching from your theme, plugin, server, CDN like CloudFlare or browser. If you are not sure how to clear caching from theme/plugin please speak to those authors. If you want to clear cache from the server, please speak to your host provider. To clear the cache from a browser use this guide: https://kb.yoast.com/kb/how-to-clear-my-browsers-cache/.

Hi there Suwash, thanks for you support ??

We understand Yoast failed to detect the images and alt tags on the translated page while it’s fine for the main page.

That’s it :)!

Is the images being inserted in the main page and the translated page are exactly the same way and same images?

Ok, this one is more complex to response. The translated page is an exact duplicate of the main page, but is a new one, is not the main page never more although they are linked in some way trough Polylang. The same occurs with the images… almost. The images are duplicated “in some virtual way”. You can modify all their attributes (Title, Description, Alt…), and WordPress library will treated them as a duplicated new image, but physically, in the server, there are no duplicate image at all, the image is only one for both language versions, so the only change is “virtual” at Polylang and WordPress database I guess.

Have you completed the SEO Data Optimization via SEO > Tools page?

Yes ?? .

Clear all your caching from your theme, plugin, server, CDN like CloudFlare or browser.

Ok, I’ll try.

Kind regards.

Well, I’ve installed “Cache Enabler” plugin and cleaned the cache and… it seems to be solved ?? !

Thanks again for your support.

Regards.

@albridi Thanks for your reply and confirming that clearing the cache with the Cache Enabler plugin corrected the issue for you. If you should need any further assistance, please do not hesitate to let us know.

Hi devnihil, thanks for supporting.

The issue of the traffic lights arrived with another pages, so I run Cache Enabler to clean cache again. But now all traffic lights are blue at the “pages” section of the WordPress admin. If you enter to the pages individually, they have the correct colors, except the pages that refuses to “see” the Polylang translated images.

Kind regards.

Hi,

If you are receiving a ‘blue’ SEO score in the pages overview section, that indicates that the page has been set to ‘noindex’ or not to show in the search results.

It looks like we might need to investigate this further as this might either be a conflict with Polylang or something with the cache, but are unable to do so over these public forums. You may want to consider Yoast SEO Premium and we’ll be able to provide you with premium personal email support and we might be able to take a closer look at this.

Otherwise, you may also want to perform a conflict check and see if this issue still occurs with just a default WP theme and Yoast SEO and Polylang as the only plugins enabled.

Hi Michael, thanks for your support ?? .

If you are receiving a ‘blue’ SEO score in the pages overview section, that indicates that the page has been set to ‘noindex’ or not to show in the search results.

Ups, my fault. You’re wright, I executed the Yoast assistant with the no index option for pages, that’s why blue lights was activated. I executed it again and now this is ok.

this might either be a conflict with Polylang or something with the cache

Probably, because it happens each time I duplicate a page and its images. Let’s see if cleaning cache from time to time I can have this under control.

Thanks again for your help.

Regards.

@albridi Thanks for your reply and you’re very welcome. If you should need any further assistance in this matter, please do not hesitate to let us know.

OK, I’ve detected something more.

When I use “Media Grid” from https://premiumaddons.com/grid-widget-for-elementor-page-builder/, Yoast “can’t see” the alt attributes of the translated images by Polylang that the grid contains, and it says that “Only 1 of the 12 images contains your keyphrase”, and that’s not true.

But if I put the same images translated by Polylang, let’s say in the Elementor’s image widget, Yoast detects them without issue.

So it could be a widgets related problem, don’t you think? But what I can’t understand is why the original page and images doesn’t have this issues. This only appears with the Polylang’s duplicates.

Thanks again for your support.

Kind regards.

Thanks for following up with us. If Yoast SEO can’t detect the image alt attributes when using the 3rd party Media Grid addons for Elementor, that’s clearly an issue specific to the relevant 3rd party Media Grid addon rather than Yoast SEO.

When using a 3rd party page builder plugin like Elementor, it sends all the content to Yoast SEO content analysis so that it can show the content analysis report. When using the 3rd party Media Grid addon, it’s not sending the images data properly to Yoast SEO and as such, Yoast SEO isn’t recognizing the image alt attributes. So, you may want to reach out to the relevant addon support to make sure that they make the addon compatible with Yoast SEO content analysis.

Thanks for following up with us. If Yoast SEO can’t detect the image alt attributes when using the 3rd party Media Grid addons for Elementor, that’s clearly an issue specific to the relevant 3rd party Media Grid addon rather than Yoast SEO

Yes, I think so. Anyway is a little strange that the issue occurs only when using Polylang’s duplicated images in the grid. With the original page there’s no problem.

I’ll try to check this with Premium Addons too, and see if it could be related to they Media Grid.

Thanks again for supporting.

Kind regards.

Perhaps is more than this… I’ve been recap this post, and if you read at the beginning, the same problem is present in another widget from other company: Simple Slider from United Elements for Elementor. So, Media Grid from Premium Addons is not the only widget that presents the issue.

It seems like Yoast can’t read the alt from a Polylang duplicated image, when this image is in a widget from a third company within Elementor. Make sense?

Kind regards.

Thanks for your clarification. We completely understand that it’s not about the 3rd party Media Grid addons for Elementor but with other Elementor add-ons as well.

We are aware of the issue as well as what I have described above is still true. Whenever using a 3rd party addon, Elementor doesn’t share all the content with Yoast SEO and as such, Yoast SEO fails to recognize all the content and as such, it shows false positive content analysis reports.

I see, anyway I only have detected the issue with pages and images duplicated by Polylang.

If I use these 3rd party add-ons within Elementor with original pages and images, not the duplicated ones, there’s no problem at all, Yoast recognizes all content perfectly.

I hope this could have a solution in a next update of Polylang, Elementor, Yoast or third party add-ons.

Kind regards.

@albridi Thanks for your reply.

To best resolve this, we would recommend reporting the issue to both Polylang, as well as the 3rd party add-on plugin developers.