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
-
Why is my site not being indexed?
Hi, I have performed a site:www.menshealthanswers.co.uk search on Google and none of the pages are being indexed. I do not have a "noindex" value on my robot tag This is what is in place: Any ideas? Jason
Technical SEO | | Jason_Marsh1230 -
Migrating domains from a domain that will have new content.
We have a new url. The old url is being taken over by someone else. Is it possible to still have a successful redirect/migration strategy if we are redirect from our old domain, which is now being used by someone else. I see a big mess, but I'm being told we can redirect all the links to our old content (which is now used by someone else) to our new url. Thoughts? craziness? insanity? Or I'm just not getting it:)
Technical SEO | | CC_Dallas0 -
Moving from www.domain.com/nameofblog to www.domain.com/blog
Describe your question in detail. The more information you give, the better! It helps give context for a great answer I have had my blog located at www.legacytravel.com/ramblings for a while. I now believe that, from an SEO perspective, it would be preferable to move it to www.legacytravel.com/blog. So, I want to be able to not lose any links (few though they may be) with the move. I believe I would need to do a 301 redirect in the htaccess file of www.legacytravel.com that will tell anyone who comes knocking on the door of www.legacytravel.com/ramblings/blah blah blah that now what they want is at www.legacytravel.com/blog/blah blah blah Is that correct? What would the entry look like in the htaccess? Thank you in advance.
Technical SEO | | cathibanks0 -
Then why my site is not ranking
My website's DA and PAs are good compare with my competitors. Then why my site is not ranking.
Technical SEO | | Somanathan0 -
Need advice for new site's structure
Hi everyone, I need to update the structure of my site www.chedonna.it Basicly I've two main problems: 1. I've 61.000 index tag (more with no post)2. The category of my site are noindex I thought to fix my problem making the category index and the tag noindex, but I'm not sure if this is the best solution because I've a great number of tag idexed by Google for a long time. Mybe it is correct just to make the category index and linking it from the post and leave the tag index. Could you please let me know what's your opinion? Regards.
Technical SEO | | salvyy0 -
I am able to point an old domain name to part of my site
hi, i have a domain name to a site that i have but i am thinking of closing that site down and transfer it to a site that is popular. I want to know if i am allowed to point the domain name to a section of my site and if so would it benefit my site or should i just continue running the other site and make it better. would the links to that site be transfered to my site any advice would be great.
Technical SEO | | ClaireH-1848860 -
Multiple Domains for One Site
We are building a site for a new miniature golf course. They have a long name, which they don't want me to mention, but it's equivalent to a name like Golden State Golf and Putt. They also have a restaurant with its own name and brand that will be a part of the mini golf course and its website, much how Hotel websites have their restaurants on their sites. Before becoming our client they purchased golfandputt.com and want to go with this domain for simplicity sake. In addition to this domain name they purchased 7 others that contain the bussiness' full name in some way, such as: goldenstategolfandputt.com goldenstategolfandputt.net, goldenstategolf-guitar.com etc., As well as: 3 variations of the golfandputt.com domain 3 variations of the restaurants name They wish to have all of these redirect to the main website or the restaurant page to "help with SEO," as they told me. From what I have researched on SEOmoz it seems better to simply optimize the website for Golden State Golf and Putt and the restaurant page for the restaurant's name. Additionally, I'm worried that redirecting the domains to the site will actually hurt them in rankings. If someone can shed some light on what the best practices for this sort of situation are I'd be much appreciative. Apologies in advance for the lengthy explanation but its a bit of a unique situation.
Technical SEO | | TVI0 -
Moving Duplicate Sites
Apologies in advance for the complexity. My client, company A, has purchased company B in the same industry, with A and B having separate domains. Current hosting arrangement combines registrar and hosting functions in 1 account so as to allow both domains to point to a common folder, with the result that identical content is displayed for both A & B. The current site is kind of an amalgam of A and B. Company A has decided to rebrand and completely absorb company B. The problem is that link value overwhelmingly favours B over A. The current (only) hosting package is Windows, and I am creating a new site and moving them to Linux with another hosting company. I can use 301's for A , but not for B as it is a separate domain and currently shares a hosting package with A. How can I best preserve the link juice that domain B has? The only conclusion I can come up with is to set up separate Linux hosting for B which will allow for the use of 301's. Does anyone have a better idea?
Technical SEO | | waynekolenchuk0