Is this hurting our SEO: company1.uk.com, company1.ru.com, company1.de.com, etc...?

[forex-websites]

Hello

I work for a company which is using this kind of subdomains, that look like domains such as company1.uk.com, company1.ru.com, company1.de.com, but they are obviously not. We also own company1.com where the main site in English lies.

We are one of the leader portals in one financial sector, and I am wondering if our SEO can be hurted by these fake "domains". I understand that we get some effect from the other domains hosted under this domain, and they are probably not as high quality as ours and they are probably unrelated.

**- Would you recommend us to stop using these and use subdomains? So change: "company1.de.com" and use "de.company1.com" instead?

• Should we expect an increase in traffic after this change?**

Any help will be appreciated.

[BrianJGomez]

I believe your current configuration is hurting your long term SEO.

My preferences would rank as follows:

1. company name + country specific TLD (company.de, company.uk, company.com
2. subdomain on .com uk.company.com, de.company.com
3. directory on .com company.com/uk/, company.com/de/

That's my .02