International SEO question domain.com vs domain.com/us/ , domain.com/uk etc.
-
Hi Mozzers,
I am expanding a website internationally. I own the .com for the domain. I need to accommodate multiple countries and I'm not sure if I should build a folder for /us/ for United States or just have the root domain .com
OPTION 1:
domain.com/page-url -- United States
domain.com/de/page-url -- Denmark
domain.com/jp/page-url -- JapanOPTION 2:
domain.com/us/page-url -- United States
domain.com/de/page-url -- Denmark
domain.com/jp/page-url -- JapanMy concern with option 2 is there will be some dilution and we wouldn't get the full benefit of inbound links compared to Option 1 as we would have geo ip redirection in place to redirect users etc. to the relative sub-folder.
Which option is better from an SEO perspective?
Cheers,
Jeremy
-
Thank you for all of your responses - they have given me a lot of very specific help and a clear direction to move forward!
-
The use of subfolder or ccTlds (or subdomain) should not be decided because of SEO, but because of business reasons.
For instance, if Jeremy does not have already a consistent organic traffic from Denmark, maybe is better starting with a subfolder, which inherits some of the overall domain authority via internal linking, hence can obtain a first boost in organic visibility.
Once the business started having recognition and consistent and continuous traffic, Jeremy will be able to consider to migrate to a ccTld solution (if really needed).
On the contrary, let's say that Jeremy's company has physical offices in Copenhagen and it is an already known brand. Then in that case it would surely better to go for the ccTld way.
-
I do not agree.
The root is for your main market, and the subfolders for your international ones. It is so since the dawn of international SEO and it always worked well.
In GWT (Search Console), Jeremy should have to geotarget the root domain to USA (or maintain it not geo-targeted, so to target all markets but Danish and Japanese), and geotarget the dk and jp subfolders to Denmark and Japan.
-
Hi Jeremy,
option 1 is surely better, because you are quitting a level (or click).
Regarding redirecting users, you can maintain the redirection via GeoIP even if you put the USA "site" under the root and not in a US subfolder.
Said that, I strongly suggest you to order the redirection just when a user come for the first time on your site, so:
- To give users the freedom to visit also the others versions, which is less dumb then you may believe. For me, living in Europe, is a real nightmare when I cannot visit the "Spanish" version of a site just because I am travelling and I am visiting it from another targeted country;
- To not always redirect googlebot to the USA version because of its American IP. Even if Googlebot started crawling from countries other than the USA, from the logs' analysis I still see how the highest percentages of visits Googlebot does are from Mountain View.
Finally, correct a mistake you are doing in your URLs:
DE is for Germany (DE = Deutschland) and not Denmark. The name of the Danish subfolder should be DK.
I warn you about this because this mistake would probably end being replicated in the hreflang implementation, with obvious geotargeting issues.
-
Hi there
If you are trying to COUNTRY target, you should go for a ccTLD, but if you are going after a LANGUAGE target, you should do a subdirectory. You can learn more here.
I would also make sure you read the following resources:
International SEO
Country Targeting (Google & Bing)
Language Targeting (Google & Bing)All of the above resources will help you have more success in your international efforts.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
-
Apologies I did misunderstand - Option 2 - I find it is more customer friendly as well.
-
Hi Jeremy,
I think that John has misunderstood the question a little as you aren't talking about different domains, just what to do with the US / Home.
I would suggest you take option 2. because you are targeting internationally from a .com, it is important to be able to differentiate where you are as soon as you hit the site. Each sub-folder is a country.
And remember to use HREFLANG to help identify language / country.
-Andy
-
Hi John
Thanks for the quick reply! I'm actually talking about having the same domain name for both situations, just not sure if I should have brand.com with the domain root targeted to US traffic or brand.com/us/ with US targeted to US traffic
cheers,
Jeremy -
You will get caveated answers. But for me Option 1 - by a long way.
Many articles on it, but you need to focus all resources on one domain - that gets optimum results. Two domains = twice as much work as one, three domains = 3 times.
Look at cottonon.com - if you want to monitor a very successful version.
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
-
Setting up international site subdirectories in GSC as separate properties for better geotargeting?
My client has an international website with a subdirectory structure for each country and language version - eg. /en-US. At present, there is a single property set up for the domain in Google Search Console but there are currently various geotargeting issues I’m trying to correct with hreflang tags. My question is, is it still recommended practise and helpful to add each international subdirectory to Google Search Console as an individual property to help with correct language and region tagging? I know there used to be properly sets for this but haven’t found any up to date guidance on whether setting up all the different versions as their own properties might help with targeting. Many thanks in advance!
International SEO | | MMcCalden0 -
CcTLD vs subfolder for international SEO
In what situations is subfolder better than ccTLD, and vice versa.
International SEO | | MedicalSEOMarketing1 -
.cn domain vs. .com/cn/ folder structure
Hey Moz Community, I'd love to hear your response based on some real world data around leveraging a .cn domain vs. porting the site over to a sub-folder structure (ie. com/cn/ structure). Currently, the site lives on a .cn and is fully translated/localized in simplified chinese - which is the ideal state. As part of a website redesign + cost analysis there is a discussion around moving all global content under a sub-folder structure using href lang, GWT combination to define country content. My question is around China specifically - does a .cn have a signficant impact on ranking? I've read conflicing reports. Secondly, how do Chinese users react to a non-.cn domain? I would imaging the click-through rate performance from SERPs is much lower. Thoughts? Comments?
International SEO | | JonClark150 -
What are the best practices for translation of city/state names for international SEO? (ie. New York in English vs. Nueva York in Spanish)
I'm working on international SEO / translation of a global travel site. While we have a global keyword research and translation strategy in process for each market they serve, I've run into a unique question. Overall, we are translating (and localizing) content for each market but aren't sure what to do with location names. Each country/state has cities and locations that have their own dedicated pages. I see three options for these location names (when titling a page and writing content): keep them in English, translate the names in the market languages, or use a combination of the two. The challenge with altering the location names to the market languages is that they are truly not known by those names. Though there are some instances where it may make sense…for instance **New York **in Spanish would be "Nueva York" with **‘**Nueva' being the Spanish translation of ‘new’. There are other instances, where no translation exists. If you’ve had a similar experience I'd love to hear your approach/recommendation.
International SEO | | JonClark150 -
International SEO: best practices for local variants of the same language?
We are translating our site into 17 different languages, including local variants of the same language (i.e. Mexican Spanish and Spain Spanish, Canadian English and British English, etc). Should we add all of these local variants to our site? We don't have the marketing / link building budget (or business need) to put these all on separate ccTLDs, so we are using country-specific subfolders instead (example.com/es/). The translations will be of exceptional quality. Our main goal is to pull in some additional traffic from these translations. If we add these local variants, do you think we can expect to see traffic from these different countries (additional traffic from Canada, England, etc)? Any advice / input would be appreciated.
International SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Does anyone know where to find recently expired domains?
The title says it all. Is there anywhere I can find domains that are recently expired and back on the market? I'm thinking if the domain name is a good enough match and has had a reasonable authority that it may be worth buying and using in the correct environment...
International SEO | | Gordon_Hall0 -
Subdomains vs ccTLD in International SEO
I'm interested to see if anyone has any additional thoughts or recent experience on subdomains vs ccTLD for International SEO. An article I found on this site is from March 2011, so just wanted to check if this is still relevant? http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/folders-vs-subdomains-vs-cctld-in-international-seo-an-overview
International SEO | | edwardlewis0