Optimal Way To Add Another Language To Site, subdomain or folder? Options

[skip_]

Hi,

I remember seing similar discussion on highrankings but after having spent a good half hour I gave up trying to find it. So I apologize if this is redundant:

After two years or so I have finally decided to add the english version to one of my sites. So, I'm trying to figure out whether I should put it into a subfolder (i.e. www.mysite.com/en/) or set up a different subdomain (i.e. www.english.mysite.com).

Could I hear some pros and cons so as to make an 'educated' choice.

Thanks!

[OldWelshGuy]

If a subfolder of your site, then it will be classed as part of the existing site, if a subdomain then it is classed as a different domain. I would lean towards having it as a subfolder rather than a subdomin personally, as it will increase the pagination of your existing site rather than diute it. Adding a link for each language back to the homepage in each language is going to help your internal backlink volume.

[skip_]

Thanks for the input OldWelshGuy!

So if I set up a subdomain, I would face the 'sandbox' issue? ...and would have to get it re-approved for adsense (the truth comes out (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) )

So are there any downsides of using a subfolder or is it the ultimate best?

As far as a link back to the homepage, I'm actually planning each page to have a link to the same exact page (including the whole URI) in the other language. So say, you'd make a search in one language, then realize that you don't understand a word, click on the other language symbol and voila (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) I thought it'd be a neat feature in terms of usability.

[OldWelshGuy]

Oooh lots of questions lol.

Sandbox: without wanting to start another 'does the sandbox work and what is it' thread, it appears that subdomains are a halfway house that leans more towards it being part of an existing domain, (although being treated as a different domain for other reasons).

Adsense: YOU are approved, not your sites, so once you have the account all is well to place wherever you wish.

Links: Yes having a 'view in english' link is good, plus I would have a link back to the both indexes in both languages as this will help the search engines and the users.

[skip_]

great answers thanks!

[Michael Martinez]

I have noticed many large media sites are using sub-directories (subfolders) named with two-letter country/language abbreviations for secondary language (especially English) content.

Hence, I think the larger sites are converging toward:

http://www.domain.name/en/ for English

http://www.domain.name/fr/ for French (Francais)

http://www.domain.name/gr/ for Greek

http://www.domain.name/es/ for Spanish (Espanol)

http://www.domain.name/fi/ for Finnish

There must be a table of standard language abbreviations somewhere on the Web. I have see all of these kinds of secondary content sections. I think another one is dk (Danish? Deutsch?).

For all I know, they are mostly using top-level domain country codes, although "en" is not used for either the United States (.us) or the United Kingdom (.uk).

[chrishirst]

just to show my super geek persona for a brief moment,. they are the ISO 639 language codes.

[skip_]

Thanks to all of you guys for your input. I guess I'm taking the subfolder option.

[OldWelshGuy]

just to show my super geek persona for a brief moment,. they are the ISO 639 language codes.

Flippin Anorak (IMG:http://www.highrankings.com/forum/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[k8bell]

On a similar theme, what would you recommend for co-branded partner sites? Currently the site I'm working on is using subdomains for partners (like msn.mysite.com) and then folders for languages (like msn.mysite.com/jp). It seems like this is a shame because all those nice external links to the site from partners are going to subdomains and thus aren't helping the rankings of the main domain (www.mysite.com). However, if I try switching partners to folders instead of subdomains, it seems like it will get pretty complicated since I'm already dealing with about 100 partners in more than 10 languages. What would you suggest in this case? Should I just accept the fact that those external links won't be improving my core site rankings? The best I can think of so far is to make sure there are links to the core site from the co-branded sites so at least the internal linking is in place, but that won't count as heavily as the external partner links directly to the core site I assume.

Just a note, the partners won't accept a solution using parameters (like www.mysite.com/jp?partner=msn) for branding reasons.

thanks for any advice you can give,
Kate