On any multilingual site, the original content is constantly evolving. Blog posts get updated with new information, product descriptions change as features are added, page layouts are reworked for better conversion, and policy pages are revised to reflect new regulations. When the original changes, every translation of that content becomes partially outdated because it still reflects the old version. Content Diff is a feature that automatically detects when an original post has been modified after its translations were created, shows you exactly what changed with a visual comparison, and helps you update the translations to match.
Without Content Diff, keeping translations in sync with originals requires manually comparing posts — opening the English version in one tab and the Spanish version in another, trying to spot what is different. On a site with hundreds of translated posts, this is essentially impossible to do consistently. Content Diff automates the detection and makes the review process clear and fast.
How Content Diff tracks changes
Lang Forge takes a snapshot of the original post’s content at the moment each translation is last updated. When the original is edited and saved again, Lang Forge compares the new content with the stored snapshot. If there are differences, it flags every translation of that post as “needs update” and stores the detailed comparison.
Step-by-step: Reviewing and resolving a content diff
- When an original post is updated, all its translations are flagged as out of date. You will notice this in three places:
– The Language column in post lists shows an orange warning icon next to flagged translations
– Translators assigned to the affected languages receive an email notification (if notifications are enabled)
- Open any flagged translation post in the WordPress editor
- At the top of the Language & Translations metabox, you will see a yellow warning banner: “The original content has been updated since this translation was last edited”
- Click View Changes to open the diff view
- The diff view shows the original content with changes clearly highlighted:
– Red highlighted text with strikethrough = content that was removed from the original
– Unchanged text is displayed normally for context
- Review the changes and decide how to update the translation. You have two options:
– AI Update Translation: Click this button to let the AI update only the changed segments while preserving the rest of the translation. This is fast and cost-effective because it only processes the modified parts, not the entire post
- After updating the translation, click Mark as Current in the metabox
- The warning banner disappears and the translation is flagged as up to date
Managing diffs across your entire site
The Translation Status page (Lang Forge → Translation Status) is the fastest entry point. Two places surface out-of-date content:
- The Translation Health → Out of Date tile at the top of the page shows the total count and a per-language chip breakdown. Click it to load the dedicated Out of Date Content list — Title, Type, Language pair (e.g. English → Русский), Original modified, Translation modified, when it was Flagged, plus Re-translate (primary) and Review (secondary) buttons per row.
- The post-list Language column still shows the orange warning icon if you prefer working from the canonical Posts table.
Workflow:
- Open Lang Forge → Translation Status
- If the Out of Date tile shows a non-zero count, click it. The page scrolls to and loads the filtered list of every flagged translation, sorted with the most recently flagged first.
- Choose per row:
– Review — opens the translation in the editor; follow the diff workflow above and click Mark as Current when done. Free.
- Returning to Translation Status, click ← Back to Untranslated to swap the page back to the missing-translations list.
- For bulk handling — if many originals had only minor formatting changes (typo fixes, whitespace, paragraph reflow) — you can select the affected translations from the Posts list and apply the Mark as Current bulk action without reviewing each one individually.
Configuring notification settings
- Go to Lang Forge > Settings > Notifications
- Enable or disable email notifications for content changes
- Choose who receives notifications: all administrators, only users assigned as translators for the affected language, or both
- Set the notification frequency:
| Frequency | When notifications are sent | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Immediate | An email is sent within minutes of the original being updated | Small teams where every change needs prompt attention |
| Daily digest | One email per day summarizing all changes from the past 24 hours | Medium-sized sites with regular content updates |
| Weekly digest | One email per week summarizing all changes | Large sites where translations are reviewed in batches |
Real-world example: Seasonal content refresh
A retail website updates its homepage hero text, 15 product descriptions, and 3 policy pages as part of a spring promotion. After the content team saves the English updates, Lang Forge immediately flags 19 translations per language as out of date. The Spanish translator opens the Posts list, filters by Spanish, and scans the Language column for the orange warning icon — 19 items light up. She starts with the homepage (highest priority), opens the diff view, sees that only the hero headline and one paragraph changed, clicks AI Update Translation, reviews the result, and marks it as current. She works through the 15 product pages next — most have only a price or feature list change, which the AI handles perfectly. The 3 policy pages need careful manual review. Total time: about 90 minutes to bring all Spanish translations up to date.
What happens on the Free plan
Content Diff is not available on the Free plan. When an original post is updated, there is no visual indicator on its translations, no diff view, and no change notifications. Teams on the Free plan need to manually track which originals have changed — which becomes impractical on sites with more than a few dozen posts.
> Tip: After making a round of updates to your original content (like a seasonal refresh, product launch, or policy change), open Posts → All Posts, filter by the target language, and scan the Language column for the orange “out of date” indicator. That gives you a quick prioritized list of every translation that needs translator attention.
> Good to know: Content Diff tracks changes at the segment level (paragraphs, headings, list items), not at the character level. If you fix a single typo in a paragraph, the entire paragraph is highlighted as changed. This is intentional — it ensures the translator reviews the full sentence in context rather than just patching one word.
[Screenshot: The Content Diff view showing green-highlighted added text and red-strikethrough removed text, with “AI Update Translation” and “Mark as Current” buttons]
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