Multilingual product filter links break when switching languages: query parameters (e.g., filter.p.tag, filter.p.m.filter.subcategory) keep the source-language values, causing empty result lists on localized collection pages.
Current behavior: Filter URLs work in the default language but fail in secondary languages because filter values in the URL aren’t translated or recognized across languages.
Examples: Hardcoded links like /collections/all-products?filter.p.tag=chairs work in EN but return no results in DE; FR filter value used on EN page produces empty results. Merchants hardcode links to land on filterable collection views since standard collection list items link to non-filterable pages.
Requests: Either a native/official way (or free app) to create filterable links without hardcoding, or a mechanism to translate/resolve filter values per active language.
Staff input: Asked which filters are affected (e.g., Type, Collection) and for exact reproduction steps leading to empty lists.
Proposed workaround: From Langify—remove existing filter translations and translate filter labels/values via Langify’s Custom Contents (Global Strict Mode). If needed, translate product options there as well.
Status: No confirmed Shopify-native fix; thread remains open pending official guidance or broader solution.
Summarized with AI on December 21.
AI used: gpt-5.
I’m using Translate and Adapt and also TLab to translate custom filter values.
There is no problem when I’m on the English version. When I switch to German using the language switcher, the filters don’t get translated within the filter link. Then, the search query goes out for English-based filter values, while searching through German-translated product. This results in the product list being empty.
Is there a solution here? I have so far hardcode-translated certain links in Shopify templates, but this solution is far from optimal.
Current behavior: product filter link parameters don’t get translated
Desired behavior: product filter link parameters get translated, or their default names are still recognized when querying products in a secondary language, so that no dead ends / empty lists occur
I have the same problem as Krawc. Let me examplify. In our homepage (sparklets.shop), we use the following hard coded links as the target for the collection list item, because we want the user to be able to easily change the filter on the collection page if they later decide to inspect a different collection. The default behavior in Shopify only lets you specify a collection as a collection list item, which leads to a collection page, which is not filterable. To get to a different collection you have to go back to the homepage and select a different one. This is undesired. As a workaround we use hardcoded links that enable filtering on the target collection page.
This works fine as longs as the shop is available in only one language. However, since we internationalized our shop (German default, English secondary), the hard coded links examplified above lead into a void, ie. an empty collection page, when the non-default shop language is selected. This is because, the filter names are hard coded and not localized to the currently selected language.
Questions:
Is it possible to either implement the intended filter behavior using native shopify features or free apps so that we dont have to use hard coded URIs at all OR …
stick with the hard coded work around solution, but additionally have shopify translate the filter values OR detect filter values of the no-selected language?
