How to achieve the highest global and local relevance in google?

[imsi]

Let's say I have a company that has its main business in Europe for thefollowing languages:

English German Portugese French Italian

And let's say some other markets (e.g. the Portugese one in south america) is also important. The question now is how should we structure the Domain if we want onlyone top level domain (www.company.com)? a) By using subdomains to target users with Google Webmaster Tools for the relevant country: portugal.company.com/pt (same content) brasil.company.com/pt (same content) germany.company.com/de england.company.com/en etc.

or b) by using virtual folders www.company.com/pt www.company.com/de www.company.com/en
etc.

or c) something completely different I do not know about? What do you reckon is best? I appreciate all suggestions!

[TaitLarson]

There was a really good Whiteboard Friday on this topic.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/international-seo-where-to-host-and-how-to-target-whiteboard-friday

Rand discusses the tradeoff of the approaches you mention above.  Be sure to also read the comments.  Some commenters mentioned they had really good results using  geotargeting in Google Webmaster Tools.