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
-
Hosting your website where you customers are located ?
Is it possible and recommended to host a website in Switzerland ending in.com to rank in the United States ? Or is it better to host it in the country you are targeting ? I know in WMT you can choose the country you want to target but is it as efficient as hosting it on a server located in the country ? Thanks,
International SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
International Confusion between .com and .com/us
A question regarding International SEO: We are seeing cases for many sites that meet these criteria: -International sites that have www.example.com/ ip redirecting to country site based on ip redirect (ex. www.example.com/ 301 to www.example.com/us -There is a desktop + mobile site (www.example.com + m.example.com) The issue we see is Google shows www.example.com/ in US search results instead of www.example.com/us in search results. Since the .com/ redirects, there is no mobile version, and www.example.com/ also shows up in mobile SERPs instead of m.example.com/us. My questions are: 1. If www.example.com/ is redirecting users and Googlebot, why is Googlebot caching it with the content of www.example.com/us? 2. Why is www.example.com/ showing up in SERPs instead of www.example.com/us? 3. How can we help Google display www.example.com/us and m.example.com/us in SERPs instead of www.example.com/? Thanks!!
International SEO | | FranFerrara0 -
Another website clone issue
My site has been cloned by this f........ http://designer.aimeeprom.com/ original site http://www.5starweddingdirectory.com Still has our logo etc... How can we prevent this from happening, What should I do next. I have pinged them via the interactive chat but they do not reply..
International SEO | | Taiger0 -
Website Migration
Are there any SEO issues with fdmgroup.com that I should address? We recently migrated to a new website redesign. Thanks.
International SEO | | fdmgroup0 -
.edu or country TLD, which one would be better?
Hi,we are working right know with an Education Instutition located Outside the U.S. I think they would be in a possition where they could get de .edu TLD. Right know they have good rankings in its own country cause they are working with their country specific TLD, and they rank well there. But, of course, a considerable percentage of their students are foreigners, so they are very interested in improving their interantional rankings (note that U.S is not a target market). I was wondering if it would be ok to recommend them to change to the .edu TLD, because all their competitors have that tld too. Whould that TLD increase their domain authority inmediatly? I know that .edu is well consider by google when it sends you a link, so it would be reasonable to think that having a .edu domain would be great, but as this domain is very related with the US and all their markets are outside the U.S, I am not sure about what recommend them. What do you think?? Thank you!!!
International SEO | | teconsite0 -
International websites : hreflang
Hi, i'm looking for good examples with 'href lang' tag (rel="alternate" hreflang="x") Have you examples of websites with this tag? Thanks D.
International SEO | | android_lyon0 -
How should I make my site better?
I am glad to join seomoz,I am from China,the seomoz is a famous seo service provider company,some reason is one seoer guru named zac introduce seomoz to Chinese seor. So I think if seomoz provider seo tools or service to chinese seoer is a good idea.The market is very big.But chinese biggest SE is www.baidu.com,not google.There is something diffrent from baidu and google. My site is www.cn-sen.com, It's good performance at google with the keyword "除湿机",but it's have some trouble at baidu.I think the content of website is the main reason.and internal link is not good. Could someone give me some advise of seo to make my site better performance? thanks very much.
International SEO | | tylrr1230 -
International SEO - auto geo-targetting
I read with interest the recent post on international SEO and the top level domain architecture approaches to local content: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/folders-vs-subdomains-vs-cctld-in-international-seo-an-overview#jtc135670 The issue I have is a little more complex: The business sells a wide variety of products (37) but one is by far and away the biggest and most popular. This means that due to the link profile of the various country sites and HQ site, search engines categorise the site according to this product (this is easily seen with the Google Adplanner) and the other product lines suffer as a result. The current architecture is to have a .com site and then individual ccTLD country sites, again with all products on each site. This creates an issue as in most countries the brand is not strong (compared to the keyword names and search volumes of the products) and so it is not that effective in generating organic traffic. The .com hogs much of the inbound links and the country sites themselves are not that well optimised for a number of reasons. A proposed solution has been to leverage the strength of the .com and the search volume for the product names, and to produce thematic sites based on each product: productA.brand.com
International SEO | | StevieCC
productB.brand.com
productC.brand.com In this way, the sites, content and link profiles are aligned around the more desirable products and we can expect improved organic search performance as a result (or at least ensure relevant traffic finds the relevant content fast). In terms of providing localised content, the plan was to use content mirroring and to then assign each content mirror to a specific geo-location using the webmaster tools console (and other SE equivilents). This is shown I think in one of Rand's videos. ProductA.brand.com/de/de Germany site for product A with unique German content
ProductA.brand.com/fr/fr French site for product A with unique French content This makes economic sense to me as to utilise the ccTLDs would result in hundreds of separate sites with all the licence and server considerations that entails. For example, for product A alone we would have to produce: productA.brand.de
productA.brand.fr
productA.brand.cn
productA.brand.jp
ect ect ect This just would not be sustainable in license/server costs alone across 37 products and 24 countries. However, I saw in a recent presentation at SES London that (auto) geo-targeting is risky, often doesn't work well for SEO and can even be seen as cloaking. I think the above strategy could still work, but perhaps we should avoid the use of auto-geotargetting altogether and hope the search engines alone do their job in getting users to the right content as we optimise the unique content for each country (and if they don't, ensure our desgn, UX and country selectors do the job instead). SEO guru consensus is to use the ccTLD if you own it, but as described above, in the real world that just isn't possible or practical given the company's strategic position. Which leads to the final question- we do own the brand ccTLDs- if they are directed back to the content mirror for the country on the .com, is there any SEO benefit in doing so aside from directing back any link juice associated with the domain)?0