Subfolder or Geo URLs?

[Ideas-Money-Art]

Hi Guys,

Context: I am working with a plumbing companies that have a corporate side and a franchise side. We got 2 franchises on board. The corporate is not working with us though. Some of these franchises don't even have a website.

Because they are local plumbers(franchises) covering generally at least 2 cities, local SEO will be the primary tactic to pursue. So before getting into that, I have to purchase domain names that are already not taken(different from corporate), therefore slightly different from corporate name but not completely to keep the advantage of the brand name.

1. My first problem: should I include a geo kw rich URL or not? To me I personally believe that creating a domain name without geo can be better in the sense that I will be able to create different subfolders for all the different locations that each franchises covers. Also, I am not sure also if google likes those geo urls?

2. If you guys would recommend Geo kw rich urls, wouldn't be a good idea to get multiple domains that would link at each other for each of the locations they cover or would it be a bad idea?

in long term SEO Who wins the battle?

www.example.com/cityname

www.examplecityname.com

Thanks Mozzers!

[FedeEinhorn]

You're welcome!

[Ideas-Money-Art]

Thank you Federico!

[FedeEinhorn]

I would definitely go with www.example.com/cityname. It isn't just easier to maintain, but it will be much easier to rank as any link juice received in www.example.com/cityname1 will also affect www.example.com and www.example.com/cityname2, which in the end, will make even easier for new cities that you add later.

Having domains including the city and linking to each other will probably be seen as an EMD which will affect all domains.