Country/Language combination in subdirectory URL
-
Hello,
We are a multi country/multi lingual (English, Arabic) website. We are following a subdirectory structure to separate and geotarget the country/language combinations.
Currently our english and arabic urls are the same:
For UAE: example.com/ae (English Site)
For Saudi Arabic: example.com/sa (Saudi Arabia)
We want to separate the English and Arabic language URLs and I wanted to know if there is any preference as to which kind of URL structure we should go with :
example.com/ae-en (Country-Language)
example.com/en-ae (Language-Country)
example.com/ae/en (Country/Language)
Is there any logic to deciding how to structure the language/country combinations or is is entirely a matter of personal preference.
Thanks!
-
Hi Andy,
thanks for your help. Sorry I should I have been more clear with my question- We basically have the following sites set up as subdirectories:
example.com/ae (United Arab Emirates)
example.com/sa (Saudi Arabia)
example.com (International - not country specific)
ae, sa, om, qa, bh are country identifiers
language identifies are "en" for english and "ar" for arabic. (The English and Arabic URL for each country is currently the same)
Using these identifiers above should I make the country website URLs as follows ?:
example.com/ae-en (UAE English)
example.com/ae-ar(UAE Arabic)
example.com/sa-en(Saudi Arabia English)
example.com/sa-ar(Saudi Arabia Arabic)
... etc for the country sites
and example.com for the (International site)
example.com/ar for the (International Arabic Site)
-
Andy is spot on.
-
Hi Bejan,
Your chosen language should be sat at the primary domain.
For example, if your are a Saudi based site that wants Arabic as the primary language, this shouldn't be sat in an identifier. Ideally, you want to have a primary site language as this is how most will do it.
www.example.com (Arabic Language)
www.example.com/en/ (English Version)Or...
www.example.com (English Language)
www.example.com/ae/ (Arabic Version)You need to also remember to set these correctly by using HREFLANG. This is what will tell Google which languages should be associated to which pages. Moz have a couple of very useful pages on this here and here.
I hope this helps a little.
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
The best way to create multi language project?
Hi everyone! I want to create multi language site (main language is English) with community and anothers subdomains. The community will also be in different languages. The site has a single database, only translation is required. What is the best way in terms of seo to create it? I see two options: 1) One language - one domain. For example: en: site.com; community.site.com; shop.site.com; subdomain.site.com; de: site.de; community.site.de; shop.site.de; subdomain.site.de; etc One domain, language as subdomain. For example: en: site.com; community.site.com; subdomain.site.com; fr: fr.site.com; fr.community.site.com; fr.subdomain.site.com; etc or en: site.com; community.site.com; subdomain.site.com; ru: site.com/ru; community.site.com (?); subdomain.site.com (?) What's the better way? The project will have at least 10 language. Thanks in advance for help!
Local Website Optimization | | oxojeck0 -
What's the best international URL strategy for my non-profit?
Hi, I have a non-profit organization that advocates for mental health education and treatment. We are considering creating regional chapters of the non-profit in specific countries - France, UK, Russia, etc. What's the best long-term foundation for global organic growth? Should we simply internationalize our content (.org/uk/)? Or create a custom site for each ccTLD (.org.uk, etc.? Since it's an educational site, the content for each country would not be particularly unique, apart from: Language (regional English nuance for UK and AUS, or other languages altogether) Expert videos and potentially supporting articles (i.e., hosting videos and a supporting article for a UK Doctor versus a US Doctor) Offering some regional context when it comes to treatment options, or navigating school, work, etc. Any thoughts would be much appreciated! Thanks! Aaron
Local Website Optimization | | RSR1 -
Best practice for local keyword ranking in URLs
Hi, I have a large artificial grass website with many franchise location landing pages. At the moment i have most of the landing page URLs like this www.domainname.com/uk/city/ My TLD does not contain the keyword "artificial grass" so should I follow the location with the keywords /city-artificial-grass/ or is Google pretty savvy these days and will it know that I am an artificial grass company? I'm after the best recommendations for this if possible. Thanks
Local Website Optimization | | Easigrass0 -
URL and title strategy for multiple location pages in the same city
Hi, I have a customer which opens additional branches in cities where he had until now only one branch. My question is: Once we open new store pages, what is the best strategy for the local store pages in terms of URL and title?
Local Website Optimization | | OrendaLtd
So far I've seen some different strategies for URL structure:
Some use [URL]/locations/cityname-1/2/3 etc.
while others use [URL]/locations/cityname-zip code/
I've even seen [URL]/locations/street address-cityname (that's what Starbucks do) There are also different strategies for the title of the branch page.
Some use [city name] [state] [zip code] | [Company name]
Other use [Full address] | [Company name]
Or [City name] [US state] [1/2/3] | [Company name]
Or [City name] [District / Neighborhood] [Zip Code] | [Company name] What is the preferred strategy for getting the best results? On the one hand, I wish differentiate the store pages from one another and gain as much local coverage as possible; on the other hand, I wish to create consistency and establish a long term strategy, taking into consideration that many more branches will be opened in the near future.1 -
Schema training/resources for local SEO?
I am currently in the process of apply schema for dozens of clients (many are large retailers). Although I am not a developer, I do know the basics of schematic markup & structured data. I do work with a development team and I'm trying to provide them with schema application best practices. Obviously there are many good articles/blog posts out there about schema. However I'm looking for a more substantial training course, webinar or resource website about schema application. Does anybody have any good recommendations?
Local Website Optimization | | RosemaryB0 -
SEO geolocation vs subdirectories vs local search vs traffic
My dear community and friends of MOZ, today I have a very interesting question to you all. Although I´ve got my opinion, and Im sure many of you will think the same way, I want to share the following dilemma with you. I have just joined a company as Online Marketing Manager and I have to quickly take a decision about site structure. The site of the company has just applied a big structure change. They used to have their information divided by country (each country one subdirectory) www.site.com/ar/news www.site.com/us/news . They have just changed this and erased the country subdirectory and started using geolocation. So if we go to www.site.com/news although the content is going to be the same for each country ( it’s a Latinamerican site, all the countries speak the same language except Brazil) the navigation links are going to drive you to different pages according to the country where you are located. They believe that having less subdirectories PA or PR is going to be higher for each page due to less linkjuice leaking. My guess is that if you want to have an important organic traffic presence you should A) get a TLD for the country you want to targe… if not B)have a subdirectory or subdomain for each country in your site. I don’t know what local sign could be a page giving to google if the URL and html doesn’t change between countries- We can not use schemas or rich formats neither…So, again, I would suggest to go back to the previous structure. On the other hand…I ve been taking a look to sensacine.com and although their site is pointing only to Spain | |
Local Website Optimization | | facupp1
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | |
| | | They have very good rankings for big volume keywords in all latinamerica, so I just want to quantify this change, since I will be sending to the designers and developers a lot of work1 -
How to approach SEO for a national umbrella site that has multiple chapters in different locations that are different URLS
We are currently working with a client who has one national site - let's call it CompanyName.net, and multiple, independent chapter sites listed under different URLs that are structured, for example, as CompanyNamechicago.org, and sometimes specific to neighborhoods, as in CompanyNamechicago.org/lakeview.org. The national site is .net, while all others are .orgs. These are not subdomains or subfolders, as far as we can tell. You can use a search function on the .net site to find a location near you and click to that specific local site. They are looking for help optimizing and increasing traffic to certain landing pages on the .net site...but similar landing pages also exist on a local level, which appear to be competing with the national site. (Example: there is a landing page on the national .net umbrella site for a "dog safety" campaign they are doing, but also that campaign has led to a landing page created independently on the local CompanyNameChicago.org website, which seems to get higher ranking due to a user looking for this info while located in Chicago. We are wondering if our hands are tied here since they appear to be competing for traffic with all their localized sites, or if there are best practices to handle a situation like this. Thanks!
Local Website Optimization | | timfrick0 -
Reducing traffic from a particular country
We are having a quality/ relevance issue with some of our traffic. One of the problems is that we are ranking well in certain foreign countries, which is driving irrelevant traffic to our site (as we only really cater for UK residents). Is there any way to suppress our overseas Google rankings whilst retaining good performance in the UK? Thanks.
Local Website Optimization | | whis0