Are Subdomains better or SubDirectories better for an international website ?
-
Can anyone explain why the structure of your website: yourbrand.com/es/category is better than es.yourbrand.com for multi language and multi country website.
-
Hi,
I totally agree with the fact that it difficult to build up authority for multiple sub domains as for sub directories. But as of now the website is to be operated from a single TLD. Thank for the answer cheers!
-
Hi Robert,
Thank you for taking the time and helping me. I actually have a single server and the entire website is to be hosted from a single dedicated IP. I believe having multiple sub directories for various countries in this case is more preferable.
Thanks
-
Tushar,
As to your question why sub-directory being better, it isn't per se.
It depends on your abilities/resources re - server location, multi-sites, languages, etc. There is no one answer fits all. WMT is very clear as to plusses and minuses (one of the things I feel it is most clear about). Are you going to have a single server or do you have ability to have multi servers (one per country)? Multi servers can be used with sub domains but not with sub directories, etc.
Here is from WMT: Mulit Lang/ Multi Country
-
When you use a sub domain search engines see it as a separate domain, so it is harder to build up authority for multiple sub domains as opposed to just using sub directories. I would go with sub directories if I were you. But, depending on how big the brand is I would look at ccTlD's too.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Good day team.. have problem with my website i lost all ranking and lost 10x times traffic in 1 day without reason...
Good day everybody. My website is www.evilrpm.com and ii have drop in rank and traffic in 1 day without reason... still fighting with that issue .. from that moment i starts to get the errors and in search console if i make testing pages .. after test they can show like warning or error page but in console its green.. i was check everything, and i think that problem in server.. because it happened when i write the truth about my experience with Shopify... this is extraordinary organization i feel like they from the starts was don't give me the way to grow... any idea what the problem? thanks for your support!
International SEO | | EvilTIGER0 -
International SEO & Duplicate Content: ccTLD, hreflang, and relcanonical tags
Hi Everyone, I have a client that has two sites (example.com & example.co.uk) each have the same English content, but no hreflang or rel="canonical" tags in place. Would this be interpreted as duplicate content? They haven't changed the copy to speak to specific regions, but have tried targeting the UK with a ccTLD. I've taken a look at some other comparable question on MOZ like this post - > https://moz.com/community/q/international-hreflang-will-this-handle-duplicate-content where one of the answers says **"If no translation is happening within a geo-targeted site, HREFLANG is not necessary." **If hreflang tags are not necessary, then would I need rel="canonical" to avoid duplicate content? Thanks for taking the time to help a fellow SEO out.
International SEO | | ccox10 -
International Site Merge
Hello, I've never had to deal with an international site before, let alone a site merge. These are two large sites, we've got a few smaller old sites that are currently redirecting to the main site (UK). We are looking at moving all the sites to the .com domain. We are also currently not using SSL (on the main pages, we are on the checkout). We also have a m.domain.com site. Are there any good guides on what needs to be done? My current strategy would be: Convert site to SSL. Mobile site and desktop site must be on the same domain. Start link building to the .com domain now (weaker link profile currently) What's the best way of handling the domains and languages? We're currently using a .tv site for the UK and .com for the US. I was thinking, and please correct me if i'm wrong, that we move the US site from domain.com to domain.com/us/ and the domain.tv to domain.com/en/ Would I then reference these by the following: What would we then do with the canonicals? Would they just reference their "local" version? Any advice or articles to read would really be appreciated.
International SEO | | ThomasHarvey0 -
URL structure of international hotel website
Hai all, Question about URL structure of international hotel website in Amsterdam: hotelcitadel.nl. Some information: - Target group are mainly english speaking guests from UK and US. Besides that guests from the Netherlands and some other countries. - Website in 6 languages. - No geo-targetting; just language targetting with hreflang annotations. Current situation: hotelcitadel.nl = dutch language version and hotelcitadel.nl/en = english language version We are thinking about changing this to: hotelcitadel.nl would become english version and hotelcitadel.nl/nl would become the dutch version. Reason: root domain hotelcitadel.nl has by far the most links,and making the root domain the english version could help the rankings in english speaking countries like UK and US. What do you think, would this be a wise idea? Regards, Maurice
International SEO | | mlehr0 -
Can multiple hreflang tags point to one URL? International SEO question
Moz, Hi Moz, Can multiple hreflang tags point to a single URL? For example, if I have a Canadian site (www.example.com/ca) that targets French and English speakers can I have the following: or would I use: Any insight would be very helpful and greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance!
International SEO | | DA20131 -
International subdomains?
I have a US based site and recently got a backlink from the German version of IGN (de.ign.com). Does that carry the same weight because it is the same root domain?
International SEO | | garyislearning0 -
Is .in domain affecting international traffic inflow to my site?
My holiday website http://seekandhide.in/ was completed and went live in Feb 2012. Last month I got 83% traffic from India and 3-5% each from USA and UK. The rest is a mixed bag from other countries. This is largely the trend since the last 3-4 months. I want to attract more organic traffic from UK and rest of Europe. My SEO consultant says that with a .in domain that will be difficult. My website currently features unique holiday properties in India that typically attract European tourists so I don't think it is a product issue. But both website visits and sales enquiries remain primarily Indian even though total number of visitors have increased gradually over the last 6 months.. My queries are 1. Is it only the .in domain that's affecting inflow of international traffic? 2. Is there anything that I can do to offset it? 3. I own seekandhide.co.uk too. Is there something I can do with that site without building a whole different website there? If I shift completely to .co.uk, I will have the same issue of being geographically limited and end up losing Indian traffic. 4. Is there something else that is not ok on the site that I am missing? 5. Advice that I get from a lot of consultants is to buy seekandhideindia.com but I plan to add international properties in a couple of years so that name would limit my appeal. Thanks in advance! Sudha
International SEO | | Sudha_Mathew0 -
SEO international - ccTLD or Subdirectories / Hosting on 1 server (IP) in Netherlands
Hi All, I do mingle me in discussion if it's better to have an Ecommerce site of a Brand X on seperate ccTLD's (Brand.nl / Brand.de / Brand.com or use subdirectories (brand.com/nl, brand.com/de, brand.com/fr etc. I see a lot of comments on this, but i am missing one (maybe) essential part. We are using Magento with multi ccTLD support. BUT the environment is hosted in the Netherlands. Will we be "penalized" on hosting in NL when using www.brand.DE or other countries? Or is it MUCH better to host those ccTLD in country of Origin? Because if it is, maybe we can better use subdirs because then we can use our builded authority of the root domain. Hope someone have an answer on this one! Thanks! Jeroen
International SEO | | RetailClicks0