README

A comprehensive PHP-based static site generator for Webflow sites with multi-language support, automatic sitemap generation, and SEO optimization.

Features

• 🌍 Multi-language support - Automatically generates locale-specific pages
• 🗺️ Auto-detecting sitemap - Automatically detects supported languages and creates SEO-optimized sitemap.xml
• 🤖 Robots.txt generation - Automatically generated with sitemap reference
• 🏷️ Open Graph tags - Includes og:site_name and other meta tags for social sharing
• 🔄 Translation system - Compares JSON DOM structures to generate accurate translations
• 📦 Asset management - Downloads and manages external assets locally
• 🔗 SEO optimized - Proper hreflang tags, alternate links, and meta translations
• ⚡ Unified generator - Single command to generate complete site
• 🗜️ Minification - Compresses inline CSS and JavaScript for faster page loads

Quick Start

Prerequisites

• PHP 8.3 or higher
• Composer
• Webflow API key

Installation

1. Install dependencies:

composer install

1. Create .env file with your Webflow API key:

echo 'WEBFLOW_API="your-api-key-here"' . PHP_EOL > .env

Generate Your Site

Simply run the unified generator script:

php generate-site.php

This single command will:

1. ✅ Fetch and generate all locale-specific HTML pages
2. ✅ Generate sitemap.xml with auto-detected languages
3. ✅ Generate robots.txt
4. ✅ Copy public files to dist directory

Architecture

Core Classes

• WebflowLocaleFetcher - Main orchestrator for fetching and generating locale-specific pages
• SitemapGenerator - Generates SEO-optimized sitemap.xml and robots.txt with auto-detected locales
• HtmlProcessor - Processes and transforms HTML (cleanup, assets, translations, meta tags)
• TranslationBuilder - Builds translation maps by comparing JSON DOM structures
• LocaleGenerator - Generates and saves locale-specific HTML files
• WebflowApiClient - Handles all Webflow API interactions

Directory Structure

/
├── generate-site.php            # ⭐ Main unified generator (use this!)
├── generate-locale-pages.php   # Legacy: locale pages only
├── generate-sitemap.php         # Legacy: sitemap only
├── composer.json
├── .env
└── src/
    ├── WebflowLocaleFetcher.php  # Main orchestrator
    ├── SitemapGenerator.php       # Sitemap & robots.txt generator
    ├── HtmlProcessor.php          # HTML processing & meta tags
    ├── TranslationBuilder.php     # Translation logic
    ├── LocaleGenerator.php        # File generation
    └── WebflowApiClient.php       # API communication

dist/                           # Generated output
├── index.html                  # Primary language (English)
├── da/                        # Danish locale folder
│   └── index.html             # Translated Danish page
├── sitemap.xml                # SEO sitemap with hreflang
├── robots.txt                 # Search engine instructions
├── json/                      # JSON DOM files
│   ├── page-content-*-default.json
│   └── page-content-*-da.json
└── assets/                    # Downloaded assets
    ├── *.css
    ├── *.js
    └── *.svg

Configuration

Edit the $config array in generate-site.php:

$config = [
    'apiKey' => $apiKey,                              // From .env file
    'siteId' => '<webflow-site-id>',                  // Your Webflow site ID
    'siteUrl' => 'https://example.webflow.io',        // Webflow staging URL
    'hostUrl' => 'https://example.com',               // Your production domain
    'outputDir' => __DIR__ . '/dist',                 // Output directory
    'site_name' => 'SiteName',                         // For og:site_name meta tag

    // Options
    'fetchContent' => true,      // Fetch JSON DOM structure
    'fetchHtml' => true,         // Fetch rendered HTML
    'downloadAssets' => true,    // Download external assets
    'minifyInline' => true,      // Minify inline styles and scripts

    // Pages to exclude by ID
    'excludePageIds' => [],
];

How It Works

Translation Process

1. Fetch JSON DOM: Downloads JSON representation of page structure from Webflow API
2. Compare Structures: Compares primary locale JSON with secondary locale JSON
3. Build Translation Map: Creates mapping of original text to translated text
4. Apply Translations: Replaces original text in HTML with translations
5. Update Meta Tags: Translates SEO titles, descriptions, and Open Graph tags (including og:site_name)
6. Fix Paths: Updates relative paths for subdirectory locations
7. Add Hreflang: Adds proper language alternate links

Sitemap Generation

1. Auto-detect Locales: Scans pages to identify all supported languages automatically
2. Group Pages: Groups pages by slug to identify translations
3. Build Entries: Creates sitemap entries with proper hreflang alternate links
4. Prioritize: Sets priority based on page type (homepage = 1.0, others = 0.8)
5. Generate XML: Outputs valid sitemap.xml following sitemaps.org schema

Key Features Explained

Auto-Detecting Sitemap

The SitemapGenerator class automatically detects all supported languages by scanning the pages fetched from Webflow. You don't need to manually configure which languages are supported - just add them in Webflow and the generator will detect and include them in the sitemap.

// This method auto-detects locales from pages
private function detectLocales(array $pages): array

Open Graph Site Name

The generator automatically adds og:site_name meta tags to all pages (both primary and translated). Configure it in generate-site.php:

'site_name' => 'SiteName',  // Appears as <meta property="og:site_name" content="SiteName">

Hreflang Attributes

All pages automatically get proper hreflang alternate links for SEO:

<!-- Primary page links to Danish -->
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="da" href="https://example.com/da/" />

<!-- Danish page links back to primary -->
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://exampple.come/" />

Inline Minification

The generator automatically minifies inline <style> and <script> tags to reduce page size and improve load times:

Before minification:

<style type="text/css">
	.section-features > .feature-item:nth-child(n + 3) {
		margin-top: -20vh;
	}
	.section-features {
		overflow-x: clip;
	}
</style>

After minification:

<style type="text/css">
	.section-features > .feature-item:nth-child(n + 3) {
		margin-top: -20vh;
	}
	.section-features {
		overflow-x: clip;
	}
</style>

Features:

• Removes CSS/JS comments
• Removes unnecessary whitespace
• Removes spaces around operators and punctuation
• Preserves functionality while reducing file size
• Can be disabled by setting 'minifyInline' => false in config

Development

Adding a New Locale

Locales are automatically detected from Webflow! Just add a new locale in your Webflow site settings, and the generator will detect and process it automatically.

Excluding Pages

Add page IDs to the excludePageIds array in generate-site.php:

'excludePageIds' => [
    '671d6147172df4affd2ed334',  // Page to exclude
],

Custom Meta Tags

To add custom meta tags, modify the HtmlProcessor::addSiteNameMeta() method or create a similar method in src/HtmlProcessor.php.

Legacy Scripts

The following scripts are still available but not recommended for regular use:

• generate-locale-pages.php - Generate only locale pages (use generate-site.php instead)
• generate-sitemap.php - Generate only sitemap (use generate-site.php instead)

Troubleshooting

No locales detected

• Check that locales are properly configured in Webflow
• Ensure the Webflow API key has access to the site

Missing translations

• Verify that content exists in both primary and secondary locales in Webflow
• Check the dist/json/ directory for generated JSON files
• Review translation pairs count in console output

Broken asset links

• Ensure downloadAssets is set to true in config
• Check that the dist/assets/ directory has write permissions
• Verify external assets are accessible

Sitemap not updating

• Make sure you're running generate-site.php (not the legacy scripts)
• Check that all locales are published in Webflow
• Verify the hostUrl is correct in config

Performance

• Average generation time: 4-6 seconds (for 2 pages with 2 locales)
• API calls: Approximately 4-6 per page (varies by locale count)
• Output size: ~20KB per page (compressed HTML + assets)

Inspired By

This project uses concepts from WebflowParser for asset management and HTML cleanup.

License

Proprietary - Sordahl ApS