Configure main-language routes

The main language is unprefixed by default. POM Translate can instead give it the same subdirectory structure as additional languages.

The setting appears under Settings → POM Translate → Languages setup → Base setup as Use a subdirectory for the default language, with the checkbox Add language slug for default language.

Choose the route model

With an English main language, the two models are:

Unprefixed: https://example.com/about/
Prefixed:   https://example.com/en/about/

Use an unprefixed base when the existing site already publishes that structure. Use a prefixed base when every public language should have an explicit and symmetrical namespace.

Enable the base-language prefix

1. Record representative current URLs and their search visibility.
2. Open Settings → POM Translate → Languages setup → Base setup.
3. Enable Add language slug for default language.
4. Save the settings.
5. Test the home page, a page, a post, an archive, and a term.
6. Confirm an unprefixed public request redirects with status 301 to the prefixed base-language form.
7. Update menus, sitemaps, external references, and caches as required.

Saving Base setup flushes WordPress rewrite rules automatically.

Understand visitor detection

When the base language does not use a prefix, an unprefixed request is treated as the base locale unless browser-language detection redirects the visitor elsewhere. When the base language does use a prefix, an eligible unprefixed request is redirected to its localized base-language address.

Browser-language redirects use status 302 because they depend on visitor preference or the Accept-Language header. The structural redirect that enforces a configured base-language prefix uses status 301.

Treat the change as a migration

Switching this setting changes every base-language public URL. POM Translate generates the new route but does not maintain a general historical redirect registry for addresses that third parties may have stored. Inventory important inbound links, analytics destinations, campaign URLs, canonical output, and CDN rules before changing a live site.

See Plan redirects for changed language URLs for the migration boundary.