Multilang site

[vortex]

Hi there,

Recently I started building a new site on a country specific TLD (for example .fr) - now I've been thinking if it would be better to go for a .com and then build a /fr/ site on it. Like this: site.com/fr/ - then I could cover both the english version plus the country specific one. This way I could aquire both local and english links.

The sites pretty new so it would not be that much of a problem to transfer the content over to the .com domain and start new.

What do you think of this? Is something like this wroth it? I don't want to shoot myself in the foot when later I decide I want to expand and build a english version of the site.

 

[Samwise89]

If I was going to start a site and I knew in advance that I'd be translating the same posts into multiple languages, I would use a .com with language-based sub-folders. That way all of the link power is pointing to one domain instead of being divided across 10 of them. Plus it's probably easier to manage in one dashboard, using categories for the languages and putting the category and sub-categories in the slug.

 

[vortex]

That makes sense. I wonder what the benefits of a local site only would be. I guess if I knew for 100% I would not expand to a english site, it would be better to go with the .fr domain for example. But since I am not sure yet, I think its better for me to go with the .com for now and just build out the local one - if I ever decide to expand it will be easier.

 

[Burgerboy]

Building an English site with .com would be good.
Would you also include links to each other on each of the site? Just in case users might be more proficient in the other language?
I always liked how websites have their other countries/languages sites clearly linked on their page because I have options to choose which language to interact in. (I'm Bilingual)