Subdomain for languages

[groupemedia]

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[David-Kley]

Why not just build one site, and incorporate Google's api for language translation? I don't think I would build 3 separate sites, due to creating more work and possible duplication issues that could affect ranking

[groupemedia]

The problem is that the sites is already build and we already put substantial energy promoting them separately since 6 months.  Also, we do not have duplication issue has its 3 sites in wordpress separated and in different languages.

My questions is, Is it worth to start from beginning by restructuring my site in 3 folders instead of 3 sub domains?

[David-Kley]

Ah Ok. Sorry I didn't know you already had them setup that way already.

I would recommend going the folder route, and resubmitting the entire site with the "fetch as google" option in webmaster tools. I don't think you would have to create an additional large amount of work, as you would just install the other site files in the folders and create redirects for the other versions

[groupemedia]

When I talked about a huge amount of work, I am not talking about the restructuring of the site which take one hour.. I am talking about the link building I already have.  this is what we have been working on since last year.

[David-Kley]

If you do a total domain redirect to the correct sub folder, I don't think you will lose any back linking effort. You will need to set up a htaccess rule that states that any request for the old domain and trailing urls for the old site forwards to the same structure on the new one.

[groupemedia]

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[David-Kley]

It would be hard to guarantee that there would be zero negative short term effects from this, but looking at the long term and your goals it seems to be the best answer.

My best answer would be to set it up as discussed above, then make sure you exhaust every possible option Google offers for getting your site recrawled. Fetch as google, total domain resubmission, site map, now robots rules, everything. In my experience, Google doesn't do anything quickly, even when you use all the processes they offer. BUT, you should be back to normal in about 3-4 months, if not in a better position.

The only question I can't answer would be if you would want to do a url removal of the old domain. I don't think I would tho, as that can add a long reindex time to the new site, and is pretty much starting over.

I will have to talk to the technical team lead to see what redirect options are available,  and what would work best

[David-Kley]

Sorry if there are typos btw, doing this from my mobile. Let me know if I can be of any further help. I'd be glad to provide more insight.