URL Structure for Multilingual Site With Two Major Locations
-
We're working on a hotel site that has two major locations. Locations currently live in separate domains. The sites target users from around the world and offer content in multiple languages. The client is looking into migrating all content into one domain and creating sub-folders for each location. The sites are strong in organic search, but they want to expand the keyword portfolio to broader keywords regarding activities, which they also market on their sites. The goal is to scale their domain authority as they have a really strong brand. The question is which would be a preferred URL structure in case content is finally migrated into one domain? - (we have doubts about were the lang folder should be placed as each location has different amenities and services).
Here is what we had in mind:
domain.com – this is the homepage
domain.com/location-1 – to target English visitors
domain.com/location-2 – to target English visitors
domain.com/es/location-1 – to target Spanish visitors
domain.com/es/location-2 – to target Spanish visitors
-
You're welcome
-
Thank you Olaf and Gianluca for the validation and additional tips. Much appreciated.
-
The answer given by Olaf is substantially correct.
I would suggest the solution you have in mind too. And, as Olaf wrote, be sure to localize the UI (menú, URLs...) for a correct user experience and Spanish SEO.
-
We prefer the way you suggest, use and also translate the menu names:
domain.com/location-1 – to target English visitors
domain.com/es/establecimiento-1 – to target Spanish visitors
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
-
Canonical and hreflang mess of international desktop and mobile site versions
Hello, I have an interesting case and I am lost in it. There are two versions of the site: desktop and mobile. And there are also international versions: English and Spanish. I'm stuck at implementation of canonical tags. Currently my setup has the following: English (default) desktop page has these: English Mobile page has these: Spanish Desktop version: Spanish Mobile version: But I somewhat feel that I messed the things... Could you guys point me to what I did wrong and explain how to set it right? Also, if you know URLs of blog posts or articles, where similar case is explained - share with me please.
International SEO | | poiseo0 -
Impact of Japanese .jp site duplicate content?
Our main website is at http://www.traxnyc.com and we just launched a Japanese version of the site at http://www.traxnyc.jp domain. However all the images used on the .jp site are linked from the .com site. Would this hurt me in Google at all for hotlinking images? Also there is quite a bit of duplicate content on the .jp site at the moment: only a few things have been translated to Japanese and for the most part the layouts and words are exactly the same (in English). Would this hurt my Google rankings in the US at all? Thanks for all your help.
International SEO | | DiamondJewelryEmpire0 -
Alexa Rank and Linking from Article sites.
We are creating unique content and submitting our articles to article sites. I have some questions about the best way to go about this. 1. We are being very careful to create unique content for each submission - so we are not submitting the same article to multiple sites. Each submission is unique, so 1 article per 1 article directory. 2. When I did my research about these article sites at Alexa.com, I noticed that a lot of the article sites are ranking very well globally, but that a lot of them are #1 in Alexa for India. They are still ranked for other countries with very top ranking, for example, they may 9,000 Alexa rank in India and then 18,000 in the U.S. which is still very high. 3. We are trying to reach U.S. customers mostly, so I am wondering if we are still getting value by linking to these sites who have global reach (even though they are ranked best for India). I would think that this is very beneficial still, but I didn't want to get the wrong kind of traffic by getting links from sites that are primarily getting their traffic from India, even though they are also getting tons of traffic from the U.S. - I am assuming this is OK because a 18,000 or 19,000 Alexa Rank in the U.S. is still excellent and I will benefit by this. But I wanted to be sure. Feedback?
International SEO | | applesofgold0 -
Best URL for international domain
Hello SEomozers We have a site with this structure: -www.xyz.com US customers, limited content in12 languages, -global.xyz.com for International customers, full content in 12 languages. The global site is the hub for the rest of the world. We are creating a new site from scratch and want to consolidate the two domains in one by using subfolders, such as: www.xyz.com for USA, www.wyz.com/jp for US customers reading in japanese and www.xyz.com/int-jp for customers from Japan (international - will set geo location with webmastertool) What do you think would be the best naming convention for the international?
International SEO | | FXDD
www.xyz.com/int-jp or
www.xyz.com/eu-jp or
www.xyz.com/eu/jp or
www.xyz.com/ ...any other suggestions?0 -
Tips for optimizing sites for arabian countries?
I'm going to assist a customer with SEO and we will also have to optimize the project for arabian countries. I'm looking for any helpful tips (links, blog-posts, experiences) like relevant search engines, best practices with keyword translation/localization, impact of mobile search/usage, recommendation for partners/companies... Thank you!
International SEO | | kqkq0 -
How to optimise you site in other countries eg Australia
We would like to rank better for specific keywords in Australia. We rank pretty well in our home tld .co.uk but would like to do so in .com.au I would appreciate your thoughts and recommendations.
International SEO | | seanmccauley0 -
Geo Targeting for Similar Sites to Specific Countries in Google's Index
I was hoping Webmaster Tools geo targeting would prevent this - I'm seeing in select google searches several pages indexed from our Australian website. Both sites have unique TLDs: barraguard.com barraguard.com.au I've attached a screenshot as an example. The sites are both hosted here in the U.S. at our data center. Are there any other methods for preventing Google and other search engines from indexing the barraguard.com.au pages in searches that take place in the U.S.? dSzoh.jpg
International SEO | | longbeachjamie0 -
Location Specific Reporting
Hi, We run a site which has slightly different versions targeted to different countries/ language groups and have just recently re-launched the site for two of the locations we currently target. Is there any way of specifically restricting SEOMoz reporting to a particular section of the site (perhaps based on URL structure) so that we can investigate the performance of the new sites without interference from the old sites? Thanks!
International SEO | | sgraceware1