Companies with numerous internet sites across various nations have a variety of choices to make on just how they structure their different websites.

But what are the advantages and also downsides of each?

In this post, we’ll check out the various approaches chosen by significant firms to reveal exactly what sort of domain framework approach they used across their family members of global sites.

At Local SEO Edinburgh, we have highlighted 4 factors to consider when choosing your domain.

Various domain name frameworks

There are extensively four possible techniques:

1. Sub-domain framework (e.g. usa.tommy.com v uk.tommy.com).
2. Separate language/ area sub-directories (e.g. nike.com/gb-en etc).
3. Separate TLDs (e.g. amazon.com v amazon.co.uk).
4. Different names (e.g. garnier.com v garnierusa.com).

Some sites will certainly use a mix of these frameworks.

 

International subdomain structure

A sub-domain structure for international sites makes sense from an organisational perspective, as you can give autonomy to national departments easily, or have a more central governance.

However, the sub-domain then has to take different languages into account and this can cause problems.

As we’ve explored previously, there’s a risk of sub-domain cannibalisation with this approach.

This is because Google will generally only feature one sub-domain from the same site in the SERPs per term, even if they offer different content. And sometimes the conflict between domains means a proportion of traffic goes to the ‘wrong’ page.

And example can be found on Tommy Hilfiger’s site. Here, in results for Google UK, the UK domain has been superseded by its US counterpart for months at a time.

 

Different language/ place sub-directories

Nike implements a single website with various sub-directories for locations as well as languages for its strategy.

This structure ought to function well for a centralised business like Nike which can supply comparable content throughout its places.

However, this also presents an issue as different landing web pages could contend against each other. Making it more difficult in getting the right web page to rate in the UK SERPs.

 

Different TLDS/ names

If you have a relatively decentralised provider, after that separate domains can be a good option. There are drawbacks though.

For one, acquiring the exact same name throughout different territories isn’t always simple. As an example, if a business was set up in Europe then it’s likely to have a.com address. This means the name has to be changed for the US market.

Semantic motion takes place when 2 or, even more, related domain names coexist in the SERPs for the exact same search term, as well as Google cannot separate in between them as a result of replicate theming.

Google sees the comparable material, treating them as the very same domain name and offering locations to simply one at a time.

A site with a.com and a.co.uk  but yet the material is practically similar indicates the US as well as UK web pages take on each other.

 

What works best?

We would certainly suggest for any sort of firm that the best set up is the folders, directory set-up. For SEO reasons it ought to be more straightforward to take care of. Nonetheless, there are all type of concerns that could occur with users from different markets ending up on the wrong language web page. Various other issues can a lot more easily occur throughout multiple sites so a solitary site can be the very best option.
There are pros and cons with each technique and also much has to do with the method which the strategy is carried out. It might be right to use the separate domain names technique but, by using practically the very same content on the web pages it weakens its search presence.

We could also take a look at Google here: is it doing enough to emerge the proper pages? Should it consistently index the .co.uk web pages domain on any type of Google UK look for instance?