Multilingual Subfolder

[Trix]

Hi all,

I´m launching a new website soon and we are currently discussing which subfolder we should use for multilingual countries.

I´ve read that as best practice we should use something like Microsoft is doing in their site, i.e. https://www.microsoft.com/fr-ch/. However, checking Nike´s site they are using the following format http://www.nike.com/ch/fr_fr/.

Which one do you think its better? I would go for Microsoft option as it looks much more simple but just wanted to know your opinion as well.

Many thanks in advance.
T

[envigodigital]

Yes, Microsoft way seems more standard.
Is there a possibility you would just use something even simpler like domain.com/fr/ and do the country based customization in the background.
That decision will be based on the condition - whether you want to curate content based on language+country or only language.

[wellliving]

I do not think that search engines have a preference. If SEO is important to you you are better of with subfolders than subdomains, because that way you can leverage the root domain trust and authority.

You can target different locations with the different parts of your site by adding them in Google Webmaster Tools as a new site (eg.: www.example.com/de/) and than changing the location targetting setting in the Site Configuration menu.