Skip to main content

Translations

This page covers two separate topics:

  • BidJS translations — built into BidJS: optional sync with your page language via <html lang> (see below).
  • Weglot — a third-party translation product, not part of BidJS. Use the Weglot section only if you integrate that service on your site.

By default, if translated content is available in your BidJS instance, the platform will display content based on the user’s browser language settings. For example, if English and French are configured and a user’s browser is set to French, the French content will be shown.

To override this automatic language selection, possibly by using a language switcher on your site, please follow the instructions below:

BidJS translations (host locale)​

This is built into BidJS (not a separate subscription or vendor). BidJS can align its UI with the language of the host page by auto-detecting the locale from the document root: it reads the lang attribute on <html lang="..."> and listens for changes when that attribute is updated (for example by a language switcher).

This behaviour is opt-in. Add syncHostLocale: true to window.bidjs.options. See also Sync with host page locale in the Options documentation for the same setting in context.

If you drive language from your own menu or switcher, update the root element (for example document.documentElement.setAttribute('lang', 'es')). BidJS will follow those changes when syncHostLocale is enabled.

Use the same BCP 47 language tags that HTML expects for lang (two-letter codes such as en, es, de, fr, or regional tags such as en-GB, es-MX). These are web standards. Useful public references:

Weglot (third-party service)​

Weglot is not part of BidJS; it is a separate subscription product with its own documentation and support. BidJS can work alongside it when both are embedded on your site.

caution

When Weglot is active on your page, it takes full control of language selection and translations. This means BidJS’s automatic language switching (based on browser or host page settings, including syncHostLocale) will no longer apply.

In this setup, you should rely on Weglot to manage all languages and translated content.

We recommend setting syncHostLocale to false, or removing it from window.bidjs.options entirely when using Weglot.

Configuration​

There are many options available when configuring your Weglot integration, which are all listed within the Weglot setup guides. There you will find steps to get set up that are specific to your website, however there are certain configuration options available that will ensure the best compatibility with BidJS.

Here’s an example of how your JavaScript implementation might look with our BidJS compatibility suggestions in place:

<script type='text/javascript' src='https://cdn.weglot.com/weglot.min.js' />
<script>
  Weglot.initialize({
    api_key: '<<YOUR_API_KEY>>',
    auto_switch: true,
    auto_switch_fallback: 'en',
    cache: true,
    dynamic: '.bidlogix-app'
  });
</script>

auto_switch​

This will switch the language depending on the user's browser language.

auto_switch_fallback​

If setting auto_switch above, this is the language to fall back to, if the user's language isn't supported.

cache​

Setting cache to true will drastically improve the performance of Weglot on your website, reducing the visible impact any translations may have on load times.

dynamic​

By default, Weglot performs translations on the page load. However, as BidJS is a "Single Page Application", translations will need to be updated as the user navigates around. By setting dynamic: '.bidlogix-app', this should be taken care of.

Please see Weglot’s documentation for details on any further configuration options, having optimised your integration with BidJS.