Top level domains, subdomains or directories for Search Engine Optimization of multilingual websites?

Share

Companies targeting multiple linguistic markets on the web have a lot to think about when planning their Internet strategy and execution. Ideally, search engine optimization should be part of their strategy considerations. In this article, we look at a technical marketing issue of website localization: how should a company distribute content targeted at different markets on the web? Do search engines, such as Google, care if a company uses a separate domain for every country, separate folders on a generic top level domain (TLD), such as a .com, or perhaps subdomains? Do users care?

Four common ways to organize website language variants

Perhaps the best way to understand the range of possible solutions is to look at some examples.

Option	Examples
Top level domains (TLDs), i.e. by domain suffix	www.antezeta.com www.antezeta.co.uk www.antezeta.de www.antezeta.it
Subdomains, i.e. by domain prefix.	it.antezeta.com de.antezeta.com en.antezeta.com
Directories (folders) on the web server	www.antezeta.com/en www.antezeta.com/it www.antezeta.com/de
Chance (a.k.a. no organization)	Mix and match pages in different languages on one domain. This is very common but not recommended.

If you’re a marketing professional, this technical minutia might seem a bit overwhelming. Relax. Google, by far the search engine leader in most markets across the world, is very good at dealing with any of these approaches – especially if a website’s content language is easy to recognize. Google, as well as the other major search engines such as Yahoo!, MSN / Windows Live and Ask, has multiple clues to help correctly guess the language of a web page.

The process of search engine optimization is designed to facilitate search engines in making the correct choice for delivering the proper website content to the right audience.

So what’s the best solution for SEO friendly website localization?

In the above table, our overall preferences are listed in order. Unfortunately, there isn’t a hard and fast rule as to which solution is the best. Each case must be considered on its own. Let’s consider some of the issues involved to understand why.

Is there a one to one relationship between a language and a top level domain?

Many European languages, particularly those spoken in smaller countries or regions, are excellent candidates for a dedicated top level domain. Your site is in Catalan? Then consider the .cat top level domain. Italian? Then .it is your domain. (Do note that there is a sizable Italian population in Swiss canton Ticino). Consider however the .be, .ca and .ch domains for Belgium, Canada and Switzerland. French is a significant official language in each of these countries – yet in each case, it plays second fiddle (to Dutch, English and German respectively). Linguistically, the .ch domain is rather complicated: German, French, Italian and Romansh are the four official Swiss languages. To this babble add English, the lingua franca of many Swiss multinational firms.

Is the language spoken in more than one country?

Should a language be spoken in significant numbers in multiple countries, there are several specific issues to consider when developing a SEO friendly domain strategy.

1. Is the language uniform across the countries? English is an obvious case where Internet navigators in the US will find UK spellings “quaint” and will miss all the jokes about “shagging“.
2. For E-commerce sites, is the same currency valid across language areas? While Europe is converging on the Euro as a standardized currency, the Swiss will expect prices in Francs, not Euro. Similar issues arise when shipping, tax and/or legal conditions differ from one jurisdiction to another.
3. Do Internet visitors expect to see the national domain suffix when selecting a site from Search Engine results? In Italy, Internet navigators often find Italian language content on .com and .net domains. Cultural sensitivities may recommend against this in some countries. Several studies, including one by Microsoft Research, indicate users do evaluate a web page URL (22-25%) when deciding which search engine result to click.

Is top level domain registration restricted by physical presence other requirements?

Some top level country domains are difficult to register if you don’t have a physical presence or a valid trademark registration in that country. France is one example.

Search Engine Optimization traps to avoid when defining a domain strategy.

Regardless of which approach a company selects, there are several SEO traps to avoid.

Duplicate content

The first is the dreaded duplicate content issue. Search engines diligently work to present Internet searchers with a varied list of pertinent results. If a company launches country specific versions of its website which vary only in a few details such as legal conditions, contact information and perhaps product currency, a search engine will choose which site to display for a given user query. Let’s say that a company launches an English language website on a .com domain, with a copy on a .co.uk domain. Besides some spelling changes, the pages on the two sites are essentially the same. So which domain will appear in a user’s searches? In general, the .co.uk domain should better respond to a query from the UK, or Europe for that matter. It should be noted that Google’s Webmaster tools can help, but neither Yahoo! nor Microsoft offer similar geotargeting functionality.

The web server’s geographic location: where is the site hosted?

Search engines will also look to see where a server is hosted – servers closer to end-users are generally deemed more relevant. IP location is probably a less important factor compared to the others. Many large companies centralize their worldwide servers to minimize IT costs. Smaller companies may look for hosting in markets far from home to get a better hosting package at a lower cost.

Incoming links: How authoritative is a website?

Another factor to consider is that of incoming links to a site. Incoming links act as type of citation, a vote, if you will. The greater the number of relevant incoming links, the greater a site’s authority for a particular query. Using multiple domains risks diluting this link authority.

A single listing or multiple listings in search engine results?

Some approaches can generate multiple company listings in a search engine results. This is highly desirable as it offers greater opportunities for a company to present itself to clients and potential clients – while depriving the competition of visibility. Yet as indicated in the previous discussion of duplicate content, search engines are looking to display the most pertinent and varied results.

Recommendations

The best solution really depends on the specifics of the particular markets a company currently serves and plans to serve in the foreseeable future. Naturally, consultants experienced in international search engine optimization issues can help you work through this process – contact us today for more information.

Similar Posts:

• How to Specify an HTML Web Document Language for good SEO
• Search engine optimization for websites in multiple languages
• Eying Search Engine Market Share in the era of Bing
• Tracking Search Engine Cache Page Views with Web Analytics
• UK and US English Dialect Considerations for Site Internationalization

If you haven't already, you might subscribe to my feed by Email, RSS feed and/or follow me on Twitter, which is updated on a more frequent – and more meaningless – basis. Finally, if you're a Sphinn user, Sphinn love is welcome :-). Thanks for visiting!

Share