Multilingual SEO subdirectories structure

[bmcinternetmarketing]

Hi,

I have to optimize a domain for Google for 3 languages (.com with subdirectories)(Dutch, German and English) content is only served on domain.com/nl, .com/de and .com/en NO CONTENT is served on domain.com. 
How do I exclude domain.com from getting in Google? Because there is no content on the top level only on subdirectories.

Is there a rule we have to add to htaccess? Or Robots.txt by disallow all and next lines allow /nl, allow /de and allow /en?

Thanks a lot!

Kind regards,

Alain Nijholt

[DmitriiK]

Hello, my friend.

Well, even though the way you want to do it is a bit strange, the answer is to use meta robots. noindex follow. It needs to be in head tag like so:

<title>...</title>

[bmcinternetmarketing]

Hi Dimitri,

Thanks for your quick response!

Well that is strange! I would never try the noindex,nofollow on the top level domain. Not in my wildest dreams

Is there an other solution, one that makes sense? Do not want to kill the domain in Google

Thanks,

[DmitriiK]

Sorry, i meant noindex follow.

[bmcinternetmarketing]

Hi Dimitri,

Well I am sorry, I was wrong. Indeed you wrote noindex follow.

Still I find that a bit strange way to solve this issue. How do you handle this issue in a multiligual subdirectories structure?

[DmitriiK]

Why is it an issue? That would do exactly what you're asking for (as far as i understand). It would let crawlers to see that domain is indeed existent, they can touch it, taste it and so on. But it won't be in google SERPs. At the same time you still can have JS, htaccess rules or whatever to redirect to proper subdirectory based on locale.

[bmcinternetmarketing]

Well you've mentioned "even though the way you want to do it is a bit strange"

So I am curious how did you apply this yourself on a multilingual domain with subdirectories? Did you? And what would be the "other way" the one you find less strange?

Thanks,

[DmitriiK]

Well, I would have an international version (usually english) on main domain and then put other languages into subdirectories.

There are lots of good content about international SEO in MOZ community - https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=moz%20international%20seo

You might wanna check those out, see what people say. You'll most likely find useful info

[bmcinternetmarketing]

Well the case is that the main market is not English but Dutch. I had the Enlish content served on the main domain. And in practice the main domain ranks the strongest and I was faced with the head domain ranking stronger than the prefered domain .com/nl So I chose to put the English content on .com/en and my this ranking issue was solved.

It feels better to serve the English content on main domain, but with Dutch language as main language this situation occurs. But would you also choose in this Dutch situation to serve the English content on the main domain and suggest I have to build more and better links to outperform the main domain to prevent it from ranking above .com/nl?

Thanks,

[DmitriiK]

I say go with your main language on main domain. So, in your case it'd be Dutch.

Personally, since you really want Dutch to be main one, I'd have yourdomain.nl as main domain and then put different language versions in subfolders. Of course, it'll depend on current rankings, links and so on.

[bmcinternetmarketing]

Never thought about serving the dutch content on .com and not .com/nl Just because I find it looks strange, and I am more a fan of multilingual SEO with .nl, .de and the .com for English. The reason why we have subdirectories is because of the links, rankings etcetera. Maybe in a existent situation Dutch language on .com isn't that strange (if I look at it in an other way).

Well thanks you've helped me sofar, I will ask on Dutch communities before I'll decide.

Cheers!

[DmitriiK]

No problem.

Consider .nl as main domain as well.

[DirkC]

Why don't you use the domain.com to serve a "choose language" page - store the choice in the cookie and for subsequent visits redirect to the chosen language. Example: http://www.volvocars.com. This is a pretty standard approach in Belgium to serve both Dutch/French content on the same domain.

rgds,

Dirk