Migrate a site that uses POM Translate

A complete migration must move the WordPress database and files. The translation JSON is a supplementary text snapshot, not a replacement for the plugin tables.

Before the move

1. Pause content editing, imports, and machine-translation generation.
2. Create a full database and files backup.
3. Download a new POM Translate JSON export.
4. Record enabled locales, the base language, URL prefixes, selector settings, exclusions, and content-type configuration.
5. Inventory important localized post, term, archive, account, and custom URLs.
6. Keep the POM Translate and WordPress versions compatible between environments.

Move the complete site

Migrate the database tables, options, posts, terms, menus, media, plugin files, and any environment configuration using the site's established migration process. In multisite, preserve the intended blog IDs and table prefixes.

After changing the domain or path, update WordPress URLs using a serialization-safe process. Do not run blind text replacement inside exported JSON or database dumps.

Activate and refresh

1. Activate POM Translate on the destination.
2. Confirm its license and enabled languages.
3. Save permalinks to refresh rewrite rules.
4. Clear WordPress, object, page, and CDN caches.
5. Confirm no old-domain references remain in menus or custom URL translations.

When to use the JSON import

If the full POM Translate tables moved successfully, do not automatically re-import and overwrite them. Use the JSON only to recover missing matching text or as part of a deliberately rebuilt destination.

For a rebuild, migrate source content first, configure languages, extract strings, then import one locale at a time. Recreate localized slugs, exclusions, and custom URL mappings separately.

Acceptance checks

Test logged-out base and target routes, hierarchical slugs, selectors, internal links, canonical and hreflang output, forms, REST/AJAX behavior, WooCommerce flows, and scheduled translation processing. Keep the source environment read-only until these checks pass.