I’m giving a spin to some WordPress multilingual plugins, will add some meat to this post once I’ve tried them out and share my views on which one is best. Anyone has experience with these plugins? Let us know what you think is best in the comments section.

• WPML
• qtranslate
• xtranslate

From my initial research it seems I will be using WPML.

qTranslate stores all languages alternatives for each post in the same post, whereas WPML manages multilingual posts in one post per language. Translations in WPML are then linked together, indicating that one page is the translation of another.  Each of this plugin has advantages and disadvantages.

Here is a comparison between qTranslate and WPML:

Advantages of WPML:

1. The database contents for posts remain unmodified (easy install and uninstall).
2. Everything gets translated by default. If a post includes custom fields, they’re attached to that post, so they are already associated with the language.
3. Other plugins that analyze contents (like related posts) keep working correctly.

Disadvantages of WPML:

1. More complex architecture. The plugin needs to hook to many WordPress functions and filter them so that only contents that matches the language is returned.
2. Additional tables are required – normally, to hold the translation grouping.

Advantage of qTranslate:

1. Side by side editing is easily implemented.
2. Less things to break. There are no additional tables and much fewer things to modify in WordPress.

Disadvantages of qTranslate:

1. In order to create multilingual contents, the user needs to insert the language tags manually, to everything the plugin doesn’t hook to. Example: Adjust MicroKid Related Posts with qTranslate Plugins
2. Uninstall can be complicated, as the database needs to be cleaned from multilingual contents.

In SEO terms, the main advantage of WPML over qTranslate is the URL rewriting. With qTranslate, you create a page, name it and every translated version will contain the same URLs elements.
E.g. www.islecreative.com/translation-french and www.islecreative.com/fr/translation-french
With WPML, every page can have a unique URLs which you can decide
E.g. www.islecreative.com/translation-french and www.islecreative.com/fr/traduction-francais

Furthermore, I find WPML more user-friendly. All the translated pages are listed on the Page section, and the translated versions remain accessible whenever a page is being edited.

Some more links:

http://www.webdesignbooth.com/wordpress-multi-languages-5-plugins-to-built-a-multilingual-website/

Nice Tutorials for WPML

http://www.cozmoslabs.com/2009/10/08/multilingual-wordpress-wpml-review/

http://www.cozmoslabs.com/2009/01/22/multilanguage-solutions-wordpress-instalation/