E-commerce : 1 site per country or 1 site per language?

[johnny122]

I'm working with an European e-commerce; they already have a French website with a .fr domain.

They want to target the Belgium with a .be domain and the Nederland with a .nl domain.

Belgium = 50% dutch, 50% French.

Is it better to do 3 websites, one per country, or 2 websites, one per language ? Thinking to SEO, costs, VAT management, what is your opinion?

[smartDeviceAU]

My suggestion would be to have one site altogether. That is translated into multiple languages (i.e Belgium, French, etc) and have multiple domains. When the domain for the French site is opened into the browser the sites language and currency reflects that of France and the same with Belgium.

You can then cloak the domain to stay as the .fr or .nl whilst the user visits the site. Magento Community Edition supports this with the use of a plugin or two.

[Travis_Bailey]

I hear the word 'cloak' and I immediately think 'bad'. Are you doing this in some way that won't get a site penalized? I'm genuinely curious.