International architecture: Country specific subfolders > domain mapping to tld

[Dan-Lawrence]

Hi

Ive got a clients dev saying they are setting up with country/language specific subfolders (as i recommended) BUT now they are saying they want to set up on network.domain.com (for example) and then each language will have its own sub-folder BUT will be domain mapped to the TLD as and when they get them.

I have asked them to clarify since sounds a bit strange since thought best to have domain.com then /uk and /us etc etc and sure ok to forward country specific TLD's to these subfolders. Its this new subdomain (network.) thats concerning me and mapping rather than forwarding (or is it the same thing) but anyone know off hand if above sounds ok or also thinks a bit strange or know issues with such a set up ?

many thanks

dan

[Vizergy]

We have tested sub-folders vs. sub-domains with international clients in the same region of the same country - each received very similar SEO (on-page, links etc...) and found that neither appeared to work better than the other as far as ranking went.  However I am not clear on what they mean by 'mapped to the TLD'.  Are they saying that each language variant  has its own TLD and that the sub-folder from the main TLD will redirect to it?

[Dan-Lawrence]

Thanks for your comment Vizergy !

i think so but asking them for clarification

if so though, i would have thought best to just fwd/redirect the tld to the subfolder (rather than the other way round)

i will find out what they mean and come back though

cheers

dan

[Vizergy]

I agree with you completely.  When you get more information please post it.  I am curious.

[Dan-Lawrence]

i will do

[Twist360]

We are working on a client site at the moment which is all over the place, they have a different Wordpress instance for each language and have subdomains for each, usa.site.com, fr.site.com.

This makes it an absolute nightmare for updating, understanding analytic and managing. We are looking at moving them over to Magento and having just the site.com and showing the correct currency/language based on their browser location. With an override just in case.

I am not sure how this will impact rankings but from an onsite management and conversion perspective I know it will help.

[Dan-Lawrence]

HI Andy

ive got another client going over to international targeting via browser location too, although that involves IP sniffing which can be a nightmare and cause all sorts of probs not helping anxiety levels

Good luck !

All Best

Dan

[Dan-Lawrence]

This is all they are saying thus far, make any sense ?

We've set it up as network.domain.com so that every language site - including the UK version - can be subfoldered from one master place. So in actuality the UK site is www.domain.com/uk but it is domain mapped to the central URL www.domain.com