Choosing between a subdomain and a subdirectory for a multilingual website can be challenging. Both have their own advantages and downsides. The best decision for you will be one that fulfills your site’s distinct requirements.
In this post, we will go through the pros and cons of both approaches so you can choose the right one for your website. If you need more help with the technical SEO of your website, partnering with a digital marketing agency can help. SEO specialists analyze your technical setup to ensure optimal performance and visibility in search engines.
Subdomain vs Subdirectory: Basic Introductions
Before learning the pros and cons of a subdirectory and subdomain, you must know what these terms mean. Let’s take a basic look at their meanings.
Subdirectories
Subdirectories are content subfolders. They subdivide sections of your website. Every subdirectory shares the top-level domain (TLD) of your website followed by its URL structure. Here’s an example to better understand it.
- example.com/shop
- example.com/shop/clothes
- example.com/shop/clothes/accessories
In the above example, the first URL is that of the main page of an online shop. In the second example, you can see a subdirectory in this shop page for a section on clothes. Within the clothes subdirectory, there’s another subdirectory for cloth accessories. This can be seen in the third example.
Subdirectories have a clear hierarchy, which is used to organize content on the website. You can have as many subdirectory levels as you want. It means that you can keep dividing your subdirectories into further subdirectories. However, while it is possible to do so, it’s not recommended.
Subdomains
Subdomains are sections of a website with their own unique domain name. Here are some examples of subdomain URL structures:
- https://shop.example.com
- https://clothes.example.com
- https://accessories.example.com
Subdomains carry their primary name before the root domain. Every subdomain is a part of the website as a whole. However, it is considered a distinct identity under your primary domain.
Subdomains are recommended when a website needs to be segregated into different entities. For example, support pages or blog sections.
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Pros and Cons of Using Subdirectories and/or Subdomains
Subdirectories and subdomains help you organize your multilingual website’s content. However, their distinct features make them more useful in specific situations than others. Consider connecting with an SEO agency if you are unsure of your site’s technical needs. The agency professionals can assist by optimizing your site’s structure for better targeting and performance in organic and paid campaigns. Let’s take a look at their pros and cons.
Pros of Subdirectories
Search engines consider subdirectories as part of your primary domain for SEO purposes. So, the Page Authority and Domain Authority of your subdirectory pages are closely linked to your root domain. Likewise, the Page Authority and Domain Authority of your root domain are also tied to your subdirectory pages.
Page Authority and Domain Authority are scores created by the Moz SEO tool. It determines the likelihood of a website or specific web page’s ranking in the search engine result pages (SERPs). The higher the score, the better the likelihood of the page ranking well.
Suppose your root domain has a high Domain Authority. In this case, your subdirectory pages will acquire this high Domain Authority as well. So, if you publish content to a subdirectory page on a root domain with a high Domain Authority, it will enjoy higher SEO rankings. The vice versa is also true. If you publish content to a subdirectory page on the root domain with a low Domain Authority, it will likely not get higher SEO rankings.
Subdirectories make your website easy to navigate as well. They do so by providing a clear hierarchy of your URLs. Thus, your site visitors are able to understand what they are clicking on and the relationship between the different pages on your website.
Cons of Subdirectories
Subdirectories help with organizing web pages. However, it’s not recommended to create too many subdirectories. Doing so makes your URLs long and confusing. Here’s an example: https://example.com/website/blog/hairclips/claw/snap-clips/2025/March/best-hair-clips-for-a-bun/
This kind of URL will confuse the reader. They aren’t likely to click on it because they don’t understand what it is about. Even if you have a website that requires complex hierarchies of subdirectories, try simplifying the hierarchies as much as you can.
Use Cases of Subdirectories
Subdirectories are suitable for websites with large amounts of content where the content you publish is relevant to the purpose of your primary website. Here’s an example.
Let’s suppose you have a website called https://www.xyz.com which sells handbags. You have launched this website to promote your product and also want your website to rank on the SERPs and gain the attention of your audience. You publish blog posts that will rank on SERPs for your product-related keywords.
In this situation, you want your blog content to be treated as part of your primary website showcasing your product. This is so because the authority that your blog posts will have will affect your primary website. This, in turn, will increase the ranking of your main website on SERPs. In this case, the blog URL of XYZ.com will be structured as xyz/blog instead of blog.xyz.com.
Another use case for subdirectories would be where you want to categorize various website sections. Let us take the example of Nike. The company has different subdirectories for users from different countries. This includes:
- https://www.nike.com/ca/ (for Canada)
- https://www.nike.com/au (for Australia)
- https://www.nike.com/gb (for the UK)
Pros of Subdomains
A subdomain’s benefit lies in the possibility of creating independent, segregated branches for various campaigns or certain sectors of your business. An online store in the US, UK, and Australia will have the following subdomains for each of these countries:
- us.store.com (for the store in the US)
- gb.store.com (for the store in the UK)
- au.store.com (for the store in Australia)
These regional variations make it clear to the user that they are visiting a country-specific variant of your store.
Cons of Subdomains
Subdomains are treated as separate sites from your primary website. So, they don’t affect the authority of your root domain. Likewise, the authority of your root domain will not influence that of your subdomains.
So, if your subdomain is ranking well in SERPs, it doesn’t mean that your main website will enjoy the same ranking.
Use Cases of Subdomains
Subdomains are used to create different regional variants of your site. While these subdomains don’t have the same Page or Domain Authority as your main website, they are helpful if your website caters to different audiences and targets different keywords. They are also beneficial if you don’t want the rankings of one site to influence another.
Subdomains can also be used by those who don’t have region-specific website variants. In this case, you can use subdomains to spread content across various websites and let the content be considered as separate websites for SEO. HubSpot website is a great example to understand this. It has subdomains like https://blog.hubspot.com/, https://developers.hubspot.com/, etc.
Subdomains are also used for technical reasons. For example, if you run your website’s blog on WordPress but host the main website on a server that doesn’t support WordPress, you’ll need to host your blog on another server with a subdomain. Another situation is when you are using third-party software to run the functionalities of your other site. However, the software provider does not have access to your main website.
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What Are the Domain Structures for Multilingual Sites?
Besides subdomains and subdirectories, there are other domain structures for a multilingual website. These are explained below.
Separate Domain Names
Some multilingual websites have separate region-specific domain names for each of their websites. An example of this is Amazon, which uses various country-specific domain names for its regional websites. Here are some of its domain names.
- Amazon.ge – for Germany
- Amazon.com – for USA
- Amazon.co.jp – for Japan
A key benefit of using separate region-specific domain names is that it makes it clear that each domain name is localized for the intended area. It’s also easier to build separate brands on every domain name.
However, country-specific domain names add much complexity to the website. It’s also more expensive. So, it’s suitable for large brands with a good budget.
URL Parameters
URL parameters are code bits that appear after a question mark in a site’s domain name. The format of a URL parameter is ?lang=URL. A website uses a URL parameter to adjust the language.
For example, if a blog is written in English, it will use example.com/our-story?lang=en. The Spanish language version of the same blog will be example.com/our-story?lang=es.
It’s not recommended to use URL parameters because it has two major cons and no real benefits. These are:
- You cannot segment your website according to the URL structure. This, in turn, makes it tough for the search engine to crawl your site and understand it.
- People visiting your site can’t recognize geotargeting from the URL alone.
How to Choose Between Subdomains vs Subdirectories for Your Multilingual Website?
The first consideration for choosing between subdirectories and subdomains is SEO. Note that Google algorithms don’t prefer one over the other when ranking pages. The best decision for you depends on what works best for your setup.
Having said that, if you want to improve the ranking of your primary website, it’s better to use a subdirectory structure. The reasoning behind this is that content in subdirectories enjoys the Domain and Page Authority of your main website. This isn’t the case with content in the subdomain.
Another reason to use subdirectories over subdomains is that subdirectories can enhance the Domain Authority of your root domain over time by acquiring backlinks. In websites that use a subdirectory structure, backlinks acquired by the pages in your subdirectories will increase their authority. This, in turn, will enhance the Domain Authority of your root domain over a time period.
But if you are publishing content on completely different subjects and want Google to rank different content separately, a subdomain structure will be suitable. This is because the search engine will now consider the content in your subdomain as part of a separate website. For example, a subdomain will be more appropriate than a subdirectory for an online business operating in different countries. A subdomain structure also allows you to make more targeted SEO decisions for different properties of your website.
Final Words
As mentioned above, choosing subdirectories or subdomains largely depends on your SEO strategy and what you think works well with your website or business. This post has given you comprehensive information about the benefits and drawbacks of both structures. Further, you also know about the specific situations in which using one is more helpful than the other. Use the knowledge to make an informed decision about choosing a subdirectory or subdomain for your website. If you’re unsure, reach out to a digital marketing or SEO company for expert guidance tailored to your unique needs.
