---
title: "Language suggestion (PRO)"
date: 2026-09-12
author: "Claude MCP"
---

# Language suggestion (PRO)

A visitor from Germany who lands on your English domain may not know that the same page exists in German on another domain. With **Language suggestion** switched on, a small bar at the bottom of the page offers that page in the language their browser asks for. It never redirects anyone.

 
## What the visitor sees

 A fixed bar at the bottom of the page, in the visitor's own language, with one sentence, a link to the same page on the domain of that language, and a close button. The bar is positioned over the page instead of pushing it down, so nothing moves while the page loads.

 Closing it stores a cookie on that domain for 30 days, per language. The visitor is not asked again for that language, and the choice does not travel to your other domains, because a cookie belongs to one domain.

 
## When the bar appears

 Only when all of this is true:

 
- the setting is on and the visitor is on a configured domain;
- the page exists in another language on another domain, and the two pages are associated in Joomla;
- the first language the browser asks for is not the language of the page;
- that language was not dismissed on this domain in the last 30 days.

 An exact match wins from a general one: a browser asking for `nl-BE` gets the Belgian page when you have one, and the Dutch page otherwise.

 
## What it needs

 The suggestion reads the hreflang links of the page, so the **System - Language Filter** plugin must have *Add Alternate Meta Tags* switched on, which is its default. Pages without an association to another language get no bar, which is the honest outcome: there is nothing to link to.

 
## Page cache and privacy

 The page itself is the same for every visitor: it carries the possible suggestions, and the choice happens in the browser. That keeps Joomla's page cache working and means no visitor is profiled on the server. Nothing is stored except the dismiss cookie, and only when the visitor closes the bar.

 
## Styling

 The bar uses the class `dpl-suggest` with a link and a button inside it. The built-in style is deliberately weak, so a rule in your template stylesheet overrides it:

 
```
.dpl-suggest { background: #003366; font-size: 1.1rem; }
.dpl-suggest a { color: #ffd700; }```