Ghost multilingual routes.yaml generator
Ghost has no built-in multilingual mode, but one self-hosted install can serve several languages if each language has its own path and its own internal tag. Pick your languages and get the routes.yaml to upload, plus the exact tags to use. It runs in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.
routes.yaml
The tags to use
| Internal tag | Put it on |
|---|
How to use the result
- In Ghost Admin open Settings, then Labs, then Routes, and upload the file. This replaces any routes you already have, so merge by hand if you use custom ones.
- Tag each translated post or page with its language tag, for example
#es. A tag that starts with#is internal: readers never see it. - Add the same pair tag (for example
#pair-launch) to every language version of one article. The pair tag is what a theme uses to link translations and printhreflang. - Leave posts in your default language untagged. They keep their current addresses.
What the file does
Each non-default language becomes a Ghost collection at its own path with a filter on its tag, so /es/ lists only Spanish posts and gets its own pagination and RSS feed (/es/rss/). The collection at / excludes every language tag, so English posts do not show up in Spanish and the other way round. Tag and author archives keep Ghost's defaults.
What it does not do
This file only sorts content into languages. Your theme still has to print <html lang>, the hreflang links and a language switcher; Ghost's own emails, sign-up pop-up and search stay in the site language. The open-source command line version of this generator, which can also audit a content export and verify a live page's hreflang set, is ghost-polyglot-routes (on GitHub, coming soon). The finished theme with the switcher, per-language menus and strings is Polyglot for Ghost, and you can try a bilingual site made with it in the live demo.