Domain structure for US Local Sites
-
We are planning on opening localized versions of our website throughout the world and in the US.
For countries these websites will be:
etc....
For the US would it be better to add the states onto part of the domain name or use a sub-folder. What is the advantage/disadvantages of each?
Meaning, should it be:
or
-
Maybe you can use cookies to set the language, instead of hard coding it in the URL?
Subfolders are the optimal structure from an SEO perspective. With any other structure you will not benefit from the domain authority of having a single site, and will have to duplicate much of your SEO efforts.
-
Thanks for all the responses. I can't use subfolders because that is the structure of the languages on the site
www.site/fr
www.site/es
etc....
We are launching subsites for legal reasons so need to have them.
Any other suggestions?
-
When you do country level sites, you might only be doing a handful. But when you get to US States, you are probably eventually going to do all the 50 states. That said, that's too many websites. I totally do a sub-folder. No questions. On country level sites, I'd do CC TLDs if that makes sense for your business.
I hope this helps and clarifies.
-
It may make sense to have separate sites for the different countries since Google does favor country specific TLDs for searches within a country.
-
I would highly agree with Takeshi on this… you should try to focus on sub folders that should look something like this (http://ww.example.com/france) and for UK the URL should be something like this (http://www.examle.com/UK)
Using separate domains and sub domains are treated as separate domains to Google and your SEO efforts might not transfer from one to another… where as in sub folders your SEO effort will help one another and less work will give you more results in terms of more traffic, sales and SERP rankings…
-
The best practice would be to use subfolders.
Subdomains (nj.site.com) are treated by Google in many aspects as separate sites, so the domain authority from nj.site.com won't transfer to say ny.site.com. You would basically have to duplicate your SEO efforts across 50 subdomains and not benefit from having one strong domain authority site.
Different domains (site-nj.com) would be the same problem, except you would also have to pay for 50 different domain name registrations. Plus, Google has devalued exact match domains so that having keywords in the domain doesn't carry quite as much ranking benefit as it used to.
Bottom line, go with subfolders for the optimal SEO site structure.
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
-
Is there a tool out there to check any domain that might be pointing to my existing domain?
Is there a tool out there to check any domain that might be pointing to my existing domain?
Technical SEO | | adlev0 -
Site hacked in Jan. Redeveloped new site. Still not ranking. Should we change domain?
Our top ranking site in the UK was hacked at the end of 2014. http://www.ultimatefloorsanding.co.uk/ The site was the subject of a manual spam action from Google. After several unsuccessful attempts to clean it up, using Securi.net and reinstating old versions of the site, changing passwords etc. we took the decision to redevelop the site. We also changed hosting provider as we had received absolutely no support from them whatsoever in resolving the issue. So far we have: Removed the old website files off the server Developed a new website having implemented 301's for all the old URL's (except the spam ones) Submitted a reconsideration request for the manual spam action, which was accepted. Disavowed all the spammy inbound links through Webmaster Tools Implemented custom URL parameters through Google to not index the SPAM URLs ( which were using parameters) Our organic traffic is down by 63% compared to last year, and we are not ranking for most of our target keywords any longer. Is there anything that I am missing in the actions I have taken so far? We were advised that at this stage changing domain and starting again might be the way to go. However the current domain has been used by us since 2007, so it would be a big call. Any advice is appreciated, thanks. Sue - http://www.ultimatefloorsanding.co.uk/
Technical SEO | | galwaygirl0 -
Should I consolidate multiple domains to a single site with 301 redirects?
Our client wants all his sites to be re-designed and perhaps consolidated into one domain. What are the dangers of using 301s on all his already ranking and established domains to their new forward-slash location? If there are some good articles that describe this exact issue please post a link.
Technical SEO | | dsmdesign0 -
What is the best way to find missing alt tags on my site (site wide - not page by page)?
I am looking to find all the missing alt tags on my site at once. I have a FF extension that use to do it page by page, but my site is huge and that will take forever. Thanks!!
Technical SEO | | franchisesolutions1 -
Does Site Structure Affect Google
Hi - I'm pretty new at this. We’re running an e-commerce affiliate site at http://www.mydomain.com. So we don’t take payments but customer gets passed through to third party sites when they select to buy a product. We have a blog at http://www.mydomain.com/news. I think Google is treating these 2 sites as as separate sites for PR. For this reason we're thinking about moving this to http://news.mydomain.com. Anyone have any experience in this?
Technical SEO | | richardjoseph0 -
Why is there duplicates of my domain
When viewing crawl diagnostics in SEOmoz I can see both "www.website.com" and a truncated version "website.com" is this normal and why is it showing (I do not have duplicates of my site on the server)? E.g.: http://www.klinehimalaya.com/
Technical SEO | | gorillakid
http://klinehimalaya.com/0 -
Site drop in SERPS after domain down for three plus weeks
Have had a clients site that has been staple in the SERPS for the last four years that we have worked on it. However they had hosting issues a couple of months back which they didn't sort for two to three weeks. Since there the main keyword has bounced around between 24th and 44th in the google results. The drop ties in with the hosting issue but the client does seem to believe that this is the source of the issue. Can someone point me towards some online articles that would explain this for them. Some of the keywords have not suffered as badly but the one key term is still in the mid 20's. I am sure it is suffering a minus 20 for the keyword as it was normally 4th or 5th in the results. We don't host the site and the client had know idea were it was hosted. What is so annoying is that it is us who pointed out the site was down. Thanks in advance everyone 🙂
Technical SEO | | highwayfive0 -
Domain Relocation
My client is running a online news website, which is running for 4 years. He's now looking to change the site into a new domain. I would like to know what are the factors to look out for when changing the site into new domain (In SEO point of view)
Technical SEO | | augmoz110