SiteCozy

Subfolder vs subdomain vs country tld for a multilingual or multiregional website

Country tlds (cctld): mydomain.co.uk, mydomain.de, mydomain.es, mydomain.com.mx …

Pros:

  • Every website can be installed on a different web server
  • Every website can be installed on different DNS servers
  • For multi-regional websites, the web server, domain name is located in the right country for the right legal jurisdiction.

Cons:

  • They almost don’t benefit from each other in terms of Google Juice since they are different domain names.
  • The organization has to pay for every domain name
  • The organization has to maintain every domain name (dns, whois)
  • The organization must buy a new SSL certificate for every domain.

Subfolders: mydomain.com/fr/, mydomain.com/en-uk/

Pros:

  • Every language related or country related folder can benefit from the Google juice coming from other folders
  • Only one SSL certificate is required
  • No risk of Google penalty since the folders are part of the same domain.

Cons:

  • It can’t be installed on different DNS servers
  • It is difficult to think about a server infrastructure with different web servers.
  • From the jurisdiction point of view, the web server is likely to be not located in the country where the website domain resides. (com.mx => Mexico, but the website can be physically located in Belize).
  • The URLs are longer. The user may face difficulties to find the URL if it needs to enter something like mydomain.com/ch-de/ from their smartphone

Subdomains: fr.domain.com, uk.domain.com, en.domain.com

Pros:

  • Every subdomain benefits from the google juice of other subdomains linked to it.
  • It can be installed on different web servers without difficulties (tutorial)
  • The organization pays for only one domain name
  • Only one domain name to maintain (whois, dns)
  • Only one wildcard SSL certificate to buy and maintain
  • The user will easily enter the URL in the browser
  • It is a versatile solution. The organization may decide to start hosting the subdomains on the same web server at the beginning and split them up into several local web servers in the future as it grows.
  • The organization may still decide to buy country tlds (cctlds) and create redirect to subdomains.

Cons:

  • The domain tld falls under one jurisdiction. For example, if it is a .com, the jurisdiction is the united states of america. On the other hand, .de jurisdiction is germany. .fr jurisdiction is France. .ve is venezuela

Conclusion:

I do think that subdomains are the best. First of all, let’s talk about subdomains and SEO. We found that the SEO claims against subdomains from Moz and Sistrix were not correct. We think that Google is right when they say that subdomains are like subfolders from a SEO point of view. This said, organizations and webmasters can more benefit from subdomains than subfolders. The subdomains benefits from the Google Juice from other subdomains. Owning one root domain name is the cheapest solution. The organization has only have to buy one domain and one ssl certificate. 

From a legal point of view, it is not important if the multi regional website has a local country tld because the location of server makes it legally tied to the local law framework.

Related Posts: