Subdomains or subfolders for language specific sites?

[SOS_Children]

We're launching an .org.hk site with English and Traditional Chinese variants. As the local population speaks both languages we would prefer not to have separate domains and are deciding between subdomains and subfolders. We're aware of the reasons behind generally preferring folders, but many people, including moz.com, suggest preferring subfolders to subdomains with the notable exception of language-specific sites.

Does this mean subdomains should be preferred for language specific sites, or just that they are okay? I can't find any rationale to this other than administrative simplification (e.g. easier to set up different analytics / hosting), which in our case is not an issue.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[William.Lau]

Subfolder is the way to go.

The rationale is that subfolders will have links from all parts of the site including from the different language section. For subdomains your ranking might fluctuate between different languages.

Subdomains are not used very often except to differentiate a primary domains core business and purpose. If it is usually just language, a subfolder is what everyone normally uses.

[Francisco_Meza]

You can go with either one. Your question is probably the number 1 asked question on Moz. LOL

I would do folders "if" creating a multi-lingual site. Let's take WordPress for example. 1 folder, 1 install, 2 languages, no multiple logins, 1 database.

For subdomains, there is no passing of PR. A subdomain is like having a brand new site. subdomain.example.com and example.com are completely different sites. The only reason I would run subdomains is if I am doing something where the "site search" algorithm will be tweaked a little... like craigslist.org. Every city has a subdomain and the algorithm may be just a little different. Maybe you may need a subdomain for security issues, but in general go with folders.

Also, the stronger example.com/english becomes, the more likely example.com/mandarin becomes. It shares link juice. This example doesn't happen when you use subdomains.

Hope that helps!

[SOS_Children]

Thanks William - just to clarify, the rationale I don't have is why moz.com mentions that the "notable exception to preferring subfolders is language specific sites".

My inclination is to go with subfolders (as we would if we were e.g. launching a blog), but since the standard advice has a caveat for language specific sites, I'd like to understand why this is so before making a decision.

[Sarbs]

In respect to Google and other search engines they will determine the language based on the content. So other than having unique URLs for the different content normal site structure considerations come into play. I would also be inclined to use a subfolder and Google's webmaster guidelines for multi lingual sites show no preference.

Heres the relevant bit:

_Google uses the content of the page to determine its language, but the URL itself provides human users with useful clues about the page’s content. For example, the following .ca URLs use fr as a subdomain or subdirectory to clearly indicate French content: http://example.ca/fr/vélo-de-montagne.html http://fr.example.ca/vélo-de-montagne.html_

Signaling the language in the URL may also help you to discover issues with multilingual content on your site.

Hope this helps.

[William.Lau]

What Tuzzell quoted is true. Subdomains is not for languages. It is mainly for SEO value and structuring of your site.

[RobMay]

Just something to add if you want to consider this in your planning scope. My proffesional opinion is surely sub-folders, keeping away from sub-domains (unless for a very specific reason needed).

1. If you are building a multilingual site, you should also consider how you will be building back-links through various methods (content development, company blog, etc) and will those be done in each language to support the authority needed to build rankings in each language you are working to expand on?

2. If you are going to be building different divisions of the domain (Chinese, and perhaps later going French, German, etc), consider building out TLD's for each domain that's needed in specific languages and focus on building those separate sites. That way you can focus on content development, social media and marketing efforts specific to each language, thus improving your options for the search in each country.

Just some thoughts to think about depending on the scope of your project and sites.

Cheers!