• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. SEO Tactics
        3. International SEO
        4. Subdomains or subfolders for language specific sites?

        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.

        Subdomains or subfolders for language specific sites?

        International SEO
        5
        7
        16592
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • SOS_Children
          SOS_Children last edited by

          We're launching an .org.hk site with English and Traditional Chinese variants. As the local population speaks both languages we would prefer not to have separate domains and are deciding between subdomains and subfolders. We're aware of the reasons behind generally preferring folders, but many people, including a-moz.groupbuyseo.org, suggest preferring subfolders to subdomains with the notable exception of language-specific sites.

          Does this mean subdomains should be preferred for language specific sites, or just that they are okay? I can't find any rationale to this other than administrative simplification (e.g. easier to set up different analytics / hosting), which in our case is not an issue.

          Can anyone point me in the right direction?

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • RobMay
            RobMay last edited by

            Just something to add if you want to consider this in your planning scope. My proffesional opinion is surely sub-folders, keeping away from sub-domains (unless for a very specific reason needed).

            1. If you are building a multilingual site, you should also consider how you will be building back-links through various methods (content development, company blog, etc) and will those be done in each language to support the authority needed to build rankings in each language you are working to expand on?

            2. If you are going to be building different divisions of the domain (Chinese, and perhaps later going French, German, etc), consider building out TLD's for each domain that's needed in specific languages and focus on building those separate sites. That way you can focus on content development, social media and marketing efforts specific to each language, thus improving your options for the search in each country.

            Just some thoughts to think about depending on the scope of your project and sites.

            Cheers!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • William.Lau
              William.Lau @SOS_Children last edited by

              What Tuzzell quoted is true. Subdomains is not for languages. It is mainly for SEO value and structuring of your site.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Sarbs
                Sarbs last edited by

                In respect to Google and other search engines they will determine the language based on the content. So other than having unique URLs for the different content normal site structure considerations come into play. I would also be inclined to use a subfolder and Google's webmaster guidelines for multi lingual sites show no preference.

                Heres the relevant bit:

                Google uses the content of the page to determine its language, but the URL itself provides human users with useful clues about the page’s content. For example, the following .ca URLs use fr as a subdomain or subdirectory to clearly indicate French content: http://example.ca/fr/vélo-de-montagne.html http://fr.example.ca/vélo-de-montagne.html

                Signaling the language in the URL may also help you to discover issues with multilingual content on your site.

                Hope this helps.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • SOS_Children
                  SOS_Children @William.Lau last edited by

                  Thanks William - just to clarify, the rationale I don't have is why a-moz.groupbuyseo.org mentions that the "notable exception to preferring subfolders is language specific sites".

                  My inclination is to go with subfolders (as we would if we were e.g. launching a blog), but since the standard advice has a caveat for language specific sites, I'd like to understand why this is so before making a decision.

                  William.Lau 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • Francisco_Meza
                    Francisco_Meza last edited by

                    You can go with either one. Your question is probably the number 1 asked question on Moz. LOL

                    I would do folders "if" creating a multi-lingual site. Let's take WordPress for example. 1 folder, 1 install, 2 languages, no multiple logins, 1 database.

                    For subdomains, there is no passing of PR. A subdomain is like having a brand new site. subdomain.example.com and example.com are completely different sites. The only reason I would run subdomains is if I am doing something where the "site search" algorithm will be tweaked a little... like craigslist.org. Every city has a subdomain and the algorithm may be just a little different. Maybe you may need a subdomain for security issues, but in general go with folders.

                    Also, the stronger example.com/english becomes, the more likely example.com/mandarin becomes. It shares link juice. This example doesn't happen when you use subdomains.

                    Hope that helps!

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                    • William.Lau
                      William.Lau last edited by

                      Subfolder is the way to go.

                      The rationale is that subfolders will have links from all parts of the site including from the different language section. For subdomains your ranking might fluctuate between different languages.

                      Subdomains are not used very often except to differentiate a primary domains core business and purpose. If it is usually just language, a subfolder is what everyone normally uses.

                      SOS_Children 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        Last post

                      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.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • fJ66doneOIdDpj

                        Multilang site: Auto redirect 301 or 302?

                        redirect 301 redirect 302 international seo

                        We need to establish if 301 or 302 response code is to be used for our auto redirects based on Accept-Language header. https://domain.com
                        30x > https://domain.com/en
                        30x > https://domain.com/ru
                        30x > https://domain.com/de The site architecture is set up with proper inline HREFLANG.
                        We have read different opinions about this, Ahrefs says 302 is the correct one:
                        https://ahrefs.com/blog/301-vs-302-redirects/
                        302 redirect:
                        "You want to redirect users to the right version of the site for them (based on location/language)." You could argue that the root redirect is never permanent as it varies based on user language settings (302)
                        On the other hand, the lang specific redirects are permanent per language: IF Accept-Language header = en
                        https://domain.com > 301 > https://domain.com/en
                        IF Accept-Language header = ru
                        https://domain.com > 301 > https://domain.com/ru So each of these is 'permanent'. So which is the correct?

                        International SEO | | fJ66doneOIdDpj
                        0
                      • MMcCalden

                        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 | | MMcCalden
                        0
                      • MedicalSEOMarketing

                        CcTLD vs subfolder for international SEO

                        In what situations is subfolder better than ccTLD, and vice versa.

                        International SEO | | MedicalSEOMarketing
                        1
                      • SimonByrneIFS

                        Can you target the same site with multiple country HREFlang entries?

                        Hi, I have a question regarding the country targeting aspect of HREFLANG. Can the same site be targeted with multiple country HREFlang entries? Example: A global company has an English South African site (geotargeted in webmaster tools to South Africa), with a hreflang entry targeted to "en-za", to signify English language and South Africa as the country. Could you add entries to the same site to target other English speaking South African countries? Entries would look something like this: (cd = Congo, a completely random example) etc... Since you can only geo-target a site to one country in WMT would this be a viable option? Thanks in advance for any help! Vince

                        International SEO | | SimonByrneIFS
                        0
                      • Fisken

                        Two versions of a website with different languages - Best way to do it?

                        I'm working on a website for a Swedish artist and her page is in Swedish, everything is in Swedish on the site, even though it's not a lot of text on the site. We would like to have the site in English too, or another version of the site in English on a separate domain, what's the best way to proceed from here? The domain name is a .se (swedish domain), would it be better to create a another domain and host the english version of the site on a .com domain? Or will we bump into problems with duplicate content if we create a replica of the swedish site in english. We're using wordpress and I know that there's translation plugins out there, is that a good option? I'm a bit clueless on how to proceed and would love some help or guidance here.

                        International SEO | | Fisken
                        0
                      • Awaraman

                        Redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO

                        Hi, I have two questions. Question 1: is it worthwhile to redirect the main site to keyword-rich subfolder / specific page for SEO? For example, my company's webpage is www.example.com. Would it make sense to redirect (301) the main site to address www.example.com/service-one-in-certain-city ? I am asking this as I have learned that it is important for SEO to have keywords in the URL, and I was thinking that we could do this and include the most important keywords to the subfolder / specific URL. What are the pros and cons of this? Should I create folders or pages just the sake of keywords? Question 2: Most companies have their main URL shown as www.example.com when you access their domain. However, some multi-language sites show e.g. www.example.com/en or www.example.com/en/main when you type the domain to your web browser to access the site. I understand that this is a common practice to use subdomains or folders to separate different language versions. My question is regarding subfolders. Is it better to have only the subfolder shown (www.example.com/en) or should I also include the specific page's URL after the subfolder with keywords (www.example.com/en/main or www.example.com/en/service-one-in-certain-city)? I don't really understand why some companies show only the subfolder of a specific language page and some the page's URL after the subfolder. Thanks in advance, Sam

                        International SEO | | Awaraman
                        1
                      • medico

                        Subdomain vs folder vs TLD

                        We are launching in a number of international markets and I am trying to figure out if I should be launching them as folders, e.g.: /es (spanish), /br (brazil), /in (india) or whether they should be subdomains, e.g. es.mysite.com, br.mysite.com, etc. In brazil we managed to secure the tld (.com.br) but not in other regions. Whats the best strategy for us? I was thinking of doing folders as I understand that this strengthens the main domain, while subdomains are considered as separate sites. For Brazil, should we also use a folder, or launch on the .com.br? I assume that using the .com.br means we will have to build up authority from scratch, and in addition, the authority we build up on the .com.br will not help to grow the .com In addition, is there value in interlinking between verions  (the versions will have the same content but in different languages)? Thanks!

                        International SEO | | medico
                        0
                      • iSenseWebSolutions

                        Australia specific SEO tips?

                        For those who are conducting SEO here in Australia: A lot of the info I read, and there is a lot, is generally from the States or UK it seems. Are there any things in particular I should look out for when doing SEO in Australia? Are there any SEO tips that are particular to Australia only? What directories are a must in Australia?

                        International SEO | | iSenseWebSolutions
                        0

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      • Digital Marketers
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • Local Citation Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter

                      Access all your tools in one place. Whether you're tracking progress or analyzing data, everything you need is at your fingertips.

                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.