Is having my homepage on a subfolder harmful?
-
Hi guys,
I am the webmaster of the following two websites:
www.gpblog.com/nl
www.gpblog.com/enThe first URL is the Dutch version of GPBlog, the second URL is the UK version of GPblog. Whenever a person visits www.gpblog.com he gets redirected to either the Dutch version or the UK version based on his location.
My question is: is it harmful to have 1. your homepage on a subfolder and 2. is it harmful to run two different languages on one domain using this technique?
Thank you in advance!
-
I tend to use the base domain as the site's 'home' language (e.g: if the blog was first conceived in the UK and the authors live in the UK, then I'd use "/" as en-GB). I only create sub-folders for the 'additional' languages (e.g: "/nl", "/de", "/fr" etc)
Even 301 redirects can dilute SEO authority a little (or a lot, under the wrong circumstances). Since lots of webmasters and editors will just 'lazy-link' to the base domain (or because it makes the link look cleaner / more legit within their content) I'd have your primary language deployment at the base domain, then all the rest in sub-folders
This is my go-to approach and to be honest it's never failed me yet
-
Hi
It may not impact - but am not a fan of that structure, it could get complicated easy for google and for scaling.
Would recommend:-
Check out https://www.disneylandparis.com/nl-nl/ etc. hopelessly slow...
Regards
-
Personally, I don't see why the folder structure would negatively affect your SEO. I recommend that you use the tag to cleanly denote what is in English & whats in Dutch.
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
-
Is it a good idea to direct a new url to a subfolder?
Hello everyone, I have a client who is in public relations. He is wanting to integrate SEO into his business and is hiring me to help. He purchased a domain that is separate from his existing website, but wants to keep the services and existing blog (which will include SEO) on his current site. For example, he has: www.example.com and wants to add a SEO folder which will contain our services: www.example.com/prseo the domain he purchased (as another example) is: www.prseo.com but wants to direct it to the folder he has set up @ example.com/prseo Can anyone offer advise? Is this a good idea?
Technical SEO | | visabelmedia0 -
301 Redirects in subfolders
Hi, we're making our site into a static site but I would like to transfer the Google juice. Most of the links and database exist on subfolders though. Could I simply do 301 redirects on the subfolders and retain the value or does it have to be on the full domain?
Technical SEO | | Therealmattyd0 -
Deleting Subdomain - 301 to Homepage Best Option?
We have a subdomain with lots of content that we think Google may consider thin, so we're thinking of removing it to improve our SEO. Is the best way to do this to simply remove the directory and then 301 everything to our homepage? Basically the subdomain consists of product images with links to retailers where they can be purchased. We've basically used it to refer our Facebook fans to when they like a product they've seen on our Facebook page, so the subdomain was not meant to rank for SEO purposes. However, it is integrated with our main webpage, and it is possible that it is hurting our SEO efforts. The subdomain is photos.yournextshoes.com and the main domain www.yournextshoes.com
Technical SEO | | Jantaro0 -
Backlinks go to "example.com" our homepage is "example.com/default.html" am I losing internal link power?
Hey everyone! Thanks again for everybodies contributions to my questions over the last few months. As the title states, our homepage is at "example.com/default.html" but everybody that backlinks to us (as expected) to "example.com" does that mean that I am probably losing a lot of the power of my links??
Technical SEO | | TylerAbernethy0 -
Duplicate Homepage In Google
Hi Just found through my SEO dashboard, Google has two versions of the same homepage, the root page, plus the index.html page, causing duplicate content from both the pages. what is the best option to ensure google only have 1 version of the homepage listed?
Technical SEO | | rfksolutionsltd0 -
Does running 2 domains from the same website harm my seo efforts?
Hi I run a website which has 2 domains running from it. One domain has a .co.uk extension and shows products aimed at the UK market. The other domain is a .com which shows products aimed at the US market. As both domains run from the same website, the content is mostly identical APART from the product listings as they change depending upon whether you're in the UK or US. My reason for doing is this mainly for paid search purposes as I can have a more accurate domain depending upon which country I target. Both sites are set to encourage the bots to index it, and in google WMT each domain is targeted to its specific country. So, my questions are, Is this set-up possibly damaging my SEO efforts for either or both websites? If so, would setting one domain to no-index, improve SEO efforts for the other? Thanks in advance for any replies! Cheers Joe
Technical SEO | | joeprice0 -
Minimum # of words on a homepage?
When I design sites for clients I try to keep the homepage clean and simple. As a result, I usually end up with very little actual content. For SEO purposes. What is the minimum # of words that I should have on any given homepage to avoid being penalized by Google? Does it have to be at least 150 or something like that? Even though my internal pages have plenty? thanks, Martin
Technical SEO | | RogersSEO0 -
Duplicate Homepage: www.mysite.com/ and www.mysite.com/default.aspx
Hi, I have a question regarding our client's site, http://www.outsolve-hr.com/ on ASP.net. Google has indexed both www.outsolve-hr.com/ and www.outsolve-hr.com/default.aspx creating a duplicate content issue. We have added
Technical SEO | | flarson
to the default.aspx page. Now, because www.outsolve-hr.com/ and www.outsolve-hr.com/default.aspx are the same page on the actual backend the code is on the http://www.outsolve-hr.com/ when I view the code from the page loaded in a brower. Is this a problem? Will Google penalize the site for having the rel=canonical on the actual homepage...the canonical url. We cannot do a 301 redirect from www.outsolve-hr.com/default.aspx to www.outsolve-hr.com/ because this causes an infinite loop because on the backend they are the same page. So my question is two-fold: Will Google penalize the site for having the rel=canonical on the actual homepage...the canonical url. Is the rel="canonical" the best solution to fix the duplicate homepage issue on ASP. And lastly, if Google has not indexed duplicate pages, such as https://www.outsolve-hr.com/DEFAULT.aspx, is it a problem that they exist? Thanks in advance for your knowledge and assistance. Amy0