Multiregional / Multilingual SEO - Subfolders Question

[SEOCT]

Hello all,

I wonder if you can help me...

I have a question about subfolders in multi-regional / multi-lingual SEO - more specifically in reference to targeting the UK and the US.

Having looked at some global websites these are the types of implementations I've most commonly seen:

UK subfolders

• .com/uk
• .com/gb
• .com/gb/en-gb | .com/en-GB
• .com/gb-en
• .com/en-gb
• .com/uk/en

US subfolders

• .com/us
• .com/us/en-us | .com/en-US
• .com/us-en
• .com/en-us
• .com/us/en

Are any of these approaches better than others or is it all a matter of personal preference? What's the reason for using .com/gb over .com/uk (or vice versa) for example?

Secondly, my assumption is that the examples above which include language subfolders do so because these companies are targeting different speaking users within these countries. Would I be right to think that since the organisation I work for is only targeting the American speakers in the US, we wouldn't need to go so far as to have language subfolders in addition to location subfolders?

Would be great to get some feedback / suggestions!

Thanks!

[katemorris]

1. Yes, usually the "best" is a matter of preference. You always should start with the country and then language if you go down that route so that the first subfolder is the geotargeted folder. But other than that, there is no real "right" answer.

2. UK vs GB is because GB is a part of the UK. The recognized country is the UK so that is used for geo-location. GB is the region in the UK that speaks a recognized version of English. Make sense?

3. Yes, companies use languages when they are going to geo-target their company or material for specific countries and then offer translations within those countries. If you are only operating in the US in English, then you don't really need all of this. However, it won't hurt to set it up for future structuring.

[SEOCT]

Hi Kate, thanks for your response. Apologies for the late reply - my subscription ran out!

I have a couple of questions:

1)"You always should start with the country and then language if you go down that route so that the first subfolder is the geotargeted folder."

Is there any difference to using .com/uk as the country or .com/gb?

2. "UK vs GB is because GB is a part of the UK. The recognized country is the UK so that is used for geo-location. GB is the region in the UK that speaks a recognized version of English. Make sense?"

Sorry I'm still a bit confused by this. Can you clarify?

Thanks!

[katemorris]

1. Nope. What you put in the URL is not relevant to SEs, just users. Whatever you think is best there will work.

2. There is a difference between recognized countries and languages.

For the English language, there are different dialects. US, GB, AU, etc. The HREFLANG tag uses the code for the region of the dialect. So it is en-gb for that region.

For the geo-targeting portion, the UK is a recognized country. Great Britan is not. The United Kingdom is made up of Great Britain ( which is made up of the "countries" of England, Scotland, Wales) and Northern Ireland.

[SEOCT]

Ok great thanks for clarifying Kate!