Translated goal names break existing goals and revenue tracking after a language pack update #326

What happened

Goal/event names such as Woo Complete Purchase, Woo Add to Cart or Visit %s* are wrapped in __() (e.g. src/Integrations/WooCommerce.php, src/Admin/Provisioning.php). On 17 Sept 2026 the French translations of these strings were updated on translate.wordpress.org. WordPress installed the new language pack automatically, and from that moment a fr_FR site started sending:

• Achat WooCommerce finalisé instead of Woo Complete Purchase
• Ajout au panier WooCommerce instead of Woo Add to Cart
• Début de la commande WooCommerce instead of Woo Start Checkout
• Retrait du panier WooCommerce instead of Woo Remove from Cart

Impact

• Plausible treats these as new goals, so every series is split in two at the date of the language pack.
• The original purchase goal was a revenue goal (EUR). The translated one is not, so revenue silently stopped being recorded. Nothing in the dashboard or the plugin signals it.
• The site owner did nothing: no plugin update, no settings change. A translation contributor can change what data is sent to Plausible.

13 goal-related strings are affected in fr (Woo, EDD, Visit %s*, Cloaked Link: Click, WP Search Queries, WP Form Completions, WP Query Parameters). Other locales are exposed the same way.

Why it deserves some thought

Goal names act as identifiers on the Plausible side, not only as labels. Right now they can change at any time, outside the site owner's control, and existing goals (revenue settings, funnels, reports) are not updated. It would be good to have a way to keep goal names stable, or at least to let site owners control them.