Link vs Subdomain Language redirect
-
Hi all,
I'm managing a website that uses a redirect to show different languages to the users. I mean when a user access the site from any country it sees the full domain but when it access it from Italy, France or Germany it goes to domain.com/lang=FR or IT.
I see that other sites use a technique to redirect to it.domain.com or fr.domain.com but I have doubts about which one is better.
We do an aggressive link building strategy and we have a lot of links to the root domain across the various languages. Is it better to do the link building to the it.domain.com and fr.domain.com, depending on the language source of the link instead of the root?
I'm seeing that some of our competitors are doing this but I'm afraid is going to spread the link juice across many subdomains and lose power to the root.
Thanks in advance
-
Subdomains would be a hard path, totally possible, but really tough. You need time and resources to dedicate to each subdomain to build the content (if geo-targeting, more time and resources would be needed to change and focus the content). I would suggest parameters, but that's just my 2 cents. Good luck!!
-
Hi Kate,
Sorry for the late reply.
I appreciate your answer and I recognize that we might not be doing the best separation of the users, and that's why we need to know what is the best solution.According to your Guide, we should be using Translate/HREFLANG, however I see that all the competition is doing the subdomain trick, in order to get more relevance on every specific markets.
My question still remains if we should go to a subdomain strategy (correctly redirected) or we keep the translation parameters in the URL, sending every user to the root.com/lang=IT, for ex.
Thanks
-
First of all, I don't think what you are doing is best for the user. Setting language based on IP address is assuming things that are not always true. Rather than setting language based on IP, try detecting language preference from the browser. http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8199760/how-to-get-the-browser-language-using-java-script
I would suggest checking out this guide to international strategy to determine if you need to just target language or country.
If you do end up just translating, I prefer using subfolders or parameters, not subdomains. And don't use a ccTLD like .fr or .de. Those are for geo-targeting only and require you to distinguish your content based on what country you are targeting.
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
-
Rankings & Linking Root Domains
How are the Linking Root Domains under Keyword Rankings being found? We've noticed for many of our key terms that big brands like Amazon, eBay, Home Depot, etc. only list 1 linking root domain, while much smaller competitors in our industry have hundreds. Clearly big brands are going to get more links than a company most people haven't heard of and the idea that these companies only have 1 linking root domain to a specific subcategory on their site is not believable. What's going on here?
Competitive Research | | Kingof50 -
Are aboutus.org links good?
Greetings Mozzers, I've posted several clients on aboutus.org sometime ago and it doesn't look like it is showing up on OSE. Its been well over 5 weeks. I have looked on their profile and none of the links are rel="nofollow" is there another thing I can check that would take all the juice away from them? Or does someone know if this is a good place to use? Thanks for any advice and clarification!
Competitive Research | | MonsterWeb280 -
Help link building
Í am looking for a good company to help me on high cuality link building . Please can someone give any recommendations of good seo companies
Competitive Research | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Possibility to see which domain carries contribute the most links?
Dear, From the linkexplorer tool, you can see: Total links Linking Root Domains Is it possible to see which domain(s) have the MOST links pointing to the website you are exploring (the URL typed in)? Thanks.
Competitive Research | | waidohuy0 -
"Linking Root Domains" Authority 100 ?
In All of my competiitors appears Wordpress.com, google.com, w3.org, yahoo.com and all of them have Domain Auth. 100. How is it possible? And how can in get links from domains like thath.
Competitive Research | | pageup5550 -
50,000 Links From The Same Website
Hey Mozers, I was conducting competitive research for a client of mine and I discovered one of their competitors has over 50,000 backlinks! After removing my heart from my stomach I realized that 99.9% of the links came from a single website that doesn't have nearly that many pages. Has anyone experienced this in the past? And if so what exactly is going on? C
Competitive Research | | calindaniel0 -
How does a site get to no 3 in Google with no KW in their links?!!
Hello everyone, my first post - ahhh I'm investigating a niche and there is a site that should have no right being there in my view. It's no. 3 Google UK for 'company formation' with a small site with 65 weak links from only 7 domains and hosted in the US. But more importantly, the Open Site Explorer says there is not 1 link with that term in its anchor text. This I find crazy and makes me suspicious. But before I go back to my client saying "oh they must be black hat" I would like your expert views. I'm not sure whether to tut or congratulate them and for the first time I'm not sure what reasons to give for their amazing performance! What's your views?
Competitive Research | | GOYMedia480 -
Viewing Specific Links in OSE - For a Specific Month
(1) Can I use OSE to see the number of links per month a site acauired over the past year (month by month)? For example, I might be interested if I see a competitor acquired a surprisingly high number of links during December, 2010. (2) Can I use OSE to see the a list of links a site acquired during a specific time, such as December of 2010? For example, if I see a competitor suddenly acquired an unusually high number of links in December, 2010, I'd like to see a list of those links, to figure out how they acquired those links. Thanks!
Competitive Research | | GregMoore0