Articles on: Translations

What is the difference between a Translation Replacement and Substitution Rule?

Understanding the difference between Translation Replacements and Substitution Rules is key to managing your site's localized content efficiently. While both tools allow you to fix translation errors, they are used in different contexts depending on how the text is structured in your site's code.

Effective localization means knowing which tool to use for the right job. While both features fix translation errors, they interact with your website's code in fundamentally different ways.

Translation Replacements

Translation Replacements are your go-to tool for site-wide text corrections. If a specific word or phrase is translated incorrectly across multiple pages, this feature allows you to fix every instance with a single entry.

Global Impact: Changes the word or phrase across the entire Clone simultaneously.
Case Sensitivity: Managed via the 'Aa' icon toggle.
- Disabled (Default): Clonable intelligently adapts the capitalization based on the word's position in a sentence (e.g., "Goal" at the start vs. "goal" in the middle).
- Enabled: Useful for languages like German where nouns (e.g., Sauerstoffpflanzen) or brand names (e.g., Coach) must remain capitalized regardless of their position.
Best For: Common nouns, subject terms, and brand names appearing in standard body text.
How to use: In the Original field, enter the incorrect translated word as it currently appears on the Clone.

Substitution Rules

Sometimes, standard Translation Replacements or the Visual Editor cannot "reach" certain text. This is common with technical elements like buttons, links, or form fields.

HTML Sensitivity: Text in these elements is often "wrapped" in HTML code (e.g., >Submit< or "Click Here"). Standard replacements often miss these because they look for the "clean" word, not the code-wrapped version.
Source Code Matching: To use Substitution Rules effectively, you must inspect the site’s source code to see exactly how the text is formatted and replicate that specific string in the rule.
Best For: Hard-to-reach text in buttons, URLs, and form scripts.
How to use: In the Original field, use the text or code as it appears in the original site’s source, not the Clone.

Always check if a word needs to be adjusted in every context before applying a global Translation Replacement. If you only need to change it on one specific page, use the Visual Editor instead.

Updated on: 13/03/2026

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