Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Different domains for multilingual website
-
Hey guys,
A site that I'm currently working on as different domains for each website language.
So for example:
word1word2.com for the english version
word3word4.com for the french version
word5word6.com for spanish version ....
Is it better to move all of the different languages to the same domain and use subfolders for each language /fr/...
Please note that the domains being used bring in organic traffic as well as they are EMDs.
Thank You.
-
The problem is that the domains have been online for years and they are all .com domains. So we will need to start fresh with new ccTLD domains.
Also, for the duplicate content problem, UK and US would be considered as duplicate content as both are in English, unless we create content for each website.
Thank you for your help Istvan.
-
Yes, that would be a signal. But the idea I have mentioned in my previous answer was to "host" different languages on different ccTLDs.
English version - .com or .co.uk (if you are targeting the UK)
French version - .fr
Spanish version - .es
We had 9 languages back that at that company and for each language we had different subfolders: /en/; /fr/; /it/ and so on... which gave us the possibility to geo-target each subfolder from Google Webmaster Tools, but we have seen our competitors next to us(and even before us) in most of the cases with their ccTLD version.
"Having different ccTLD's for each language but keeping the same site would result in duplicate content am I right?"
If you plan to keep the current versions + have new ccTLD versions then yes, you have a duplicate there. What you could do, if you migrate to ccTLD version is the create 301 redirects from the old URL to the new.
Istvan
-
Hello Istvan,
Thank you for your response. However, don't you believe that the newly implemented HREF Lang tag was done for to resolve this specific kind of problem?
Having different ccTLD's for each language but keeping the same site would result in duplicate content am I right?
Thank You.
-
Hi BruLee,
In your case I would advice you to check the article of Danny Dover. It might be a little-bit old - 2009 - but it covers the pros and cons of choosing how to host the different languages.
I have experience with the version where you have one big site and different languages are hosted on different subfolders, which was good, but we could have done better.
If you have enough resources to have better link building campaigns I would go with the different ccTLD for each language.
I hope this helped,
Istvan
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
-
Possible to Migrate Website Design to Different Theme?
Last year we purchased a $79 them and coded a new designer our real estate website. The database of listings was transferred to the new theme. A year later we realize the new theme is not that fast; does not perform great, so despite optimizing our server we are not getting very fast performance. So, my question is, can we take the design, the CSS of our current theme (and database) and transfer it to a better performing theme? We are in a very competitive niche and our website must perform quickly both desktop and mobile. If this is feasible is this a major production? Note we are very happy with the design and this would solely be to improve download speeds to improve the user experience and get better ranking. Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Why some domains and sub-domains have same DA, but some others don't?
Hi I noticed for some blog providers in my country, which provide a sub-domian address for their blogs. the sub-domain authority is exactly as the main domain. Whereas, for some other blog providers every subdomain has its different and lower authority. for example "ffff.blog.ir" and "blog.ir" both have domain authority of 60. It noteworthy to mention that the "ffff.blog.ir" does not even exist! This is while mihanblog.com and hfilm.mihanblog.com has diffrent page authority.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rayatarh5451230 -
Move domain to new domain, for how much time should I keep forwarding?
I'm not sure but my website looks like is not getting it's juice as supposed to be. As we already know, google preferred https sites and this is what happened to mine, it was been crawling as https but when the time came to move my domain to new domain, I used 301 or domain forwarding service, unfortunately they didn't have a way to forward from https to new https, they only had regular http to https, when users clicked to my old domain from google search my site was returned to "site does not exist", I used hreflang at least that google would detect my new domain been forwarding and yes it worked but now I'm wondering, for how much time should I keep the forwarding the old domain to the new one, my site looks like is not going up, I have changed all the external links, any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Fulanito1 -
Why differents browsers return different search results?
Hi everyone, I don't understand the reason why if I delete cookies, chronology, set anonymous way surfing in Chorme and Safari, I have different results on Google. I tried it from the same pc and at the same time. Searching in google the query "vangogh" the internet site "www.vangogh-creative.it" is shown in the first page in Chrome but not in Safari. I asked in Google webmaster forum, but nobody seems to know the reason of this behavior. Can anyone help me? Thanks in advance. Massimiliano
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vanGoGh-creative0 -
Targeting different countries with domain name
Hi currently have a eCommerce store .com.au targeting Australia. We want to start targeting the US market with the same products. I guess what would be the top choice in this case since our domain is location-specific to Australia and not a generic top-level domain (gTLD)? Cheers, Chris
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jayoliverwright0 -
Domain dominance
I've just started to work for a company who've purchased masses of domains with every conceivable permutation based on all their products with every extension possible e.g .biz . eu. .net (including .co.uk and .com of course). I have two questions: 1. Is it worth keeping all these (they want to add more) domains or let them expire? 2. All the purchased domains are online - is there any point (they redirect with a 301)?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | LJHopkins0 -
Two Different Domains exact same content
Hello, I suspect I know the answer to this but would like to have it confirmed. I have been speaking to a company the last couple of weeks who have 2 domains with the exact same content. Possible a third but they haven't supplied a link. This from all I've read would be a huge problem for ranking and SEO. What would be the best way to deal with this ? I did do a search and found articles/questions on same content on the same site and in articles etc but nothing about exactly the same websites on 2 domains. Cheers David.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | techdesign0 -
Should I buy a .co domain if my preferred .com and .co.uk domain are taken by other companies?
I'm looking to boost my website ranking and drive more traffic to it using a keyword rich domain name. I want to have my nearest city followed by the keyword "seo" in the domain name but the .co.uk and .com have already been taken. Should I take the plunge and buy .co at a higher price? What options do I have? Also whilst we're on domains and URL's is it best to separate keywords in url's with a (_) or a (-)? Many thanks for any help with this matter. Alex
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SeoSheikh0