Hi Rob, Virginia & others,

I know this question and answer is way over a year old, however it's in my opinion still highly relevant.

I just read this article, suggesting that a gTLD is better than having ccTLD's when wanting to become multinational. https://www.branded3.com/blog/choose-subdomain-subfolder-cctld-international/

I have a small startup project with a patio heater company, where I have a gTLD (.com) and right now also a ccTLD (.dk). These two domains of course link to each other but infact they are two separate Shopify stores. DA is around 20 on the ccTLD and 10 on gTLD. Now I want to expand to Poland, Sweden, Germany and the Netherlands (I have purchased these ccTLD's), so my question is now, which is to prefer SEO-wise for the optimal setup in each country?

1. Go with the gTLD and having the other languages served as de.domain.com, pl.domain.com etc.?
2. Having a CNAME setup on each ccTLD, so the shop will be on domain.pl, domain.de etc. and still "in the background" being served from the gTLD?

I hope somebody can point me in the right direction.

Best regards,

Jens