Multiple Languages and Google

Localisation SEO considerations

[glitterball]

Some of my sites are localised into several languages.
Where possible I have always linked directly to the individual localised pages i.e. en.example.com/bluewidgets.html links directly to de.example.com/bluewidgets.html and es.example.com/bluewidgets.html instead of to the 'home' page of each language i.e. de.example.com/index.html.

Would it be better, from a ranking point of view, to link to the home page of each language and 'concentrate' the PR there?

[Haecceity]

I'd try to think of it from Google's point of view: does this look like a natural linking pattern. And I would think not.

How would your current link pattern benefit users? They're searching in German and you offer them a link to the same page in... Spanish? How many users is that going to benefit? Where's the value? There hardly is likely to be any and so it looks like excessive crosslinking.

The most I would do in your shoes, and I am a pair of shoes that looks very like yours, is to link all of your index pages together as you suggest, which would look like a more natural link pattern.

[selomelo]

How about using directories instead of subdomains?
(This is not a suggestion, but another question)

I have a site and I would like to add pages in another language. Which one should be preferred?

otherlanguage.mysite.com or mysite.com/otherlanguage?

[Haecceity]

I find it more convenient from an administrative point of view to have different languages on subdomains and to treat them as separate sites.

But Google treats each subdomain as a separate site as well, so from the point of view of almighty PageRank it's probably better to use subdirectories, assuming you use a logical, pyramid-shaped directory structure.

[mirrornl]

maybe its even better to put the new-language site in the root:), gets better pr

[tedster]

gets better pr

I don't think that pattern is just because it's in the root - but because more sites might link to a home page. You can easily have a site where internal directories have higher PR than the home page.

I've been using subdirectories for each language with satisfaction. The individual langauge versions each get proportional traffic from the country-specific Google search and we've seen no issues. We link to home for each langauge and don't interlink individual pages.

[selomelo]

I have a USA based client with a well-performing main site in English (on first page in all major SEs after some basic improvements). The site has some +600 internal pages, a good history (10 years), an a fairly good +PR6.
The interesting thing about this site is that it has a top navigation bar on the main page as well as on all internal pages that points to 16 different sites in 16 languages like:
widgets-es.com widgets-it.com widgets-fr.com etc.

Given the fact that the language domains do not perform well as compared to the main site, I am considering to suggest the site owner to think consolidating all language sites into the main site.

Should I suggest consolidation? And can such consolidation help a to get a better performance for the language sites when incorporated into the main site with their own subdirectories like widgets/french, widgets/italian, etc? And lastly, can this integration lead to an increase in PR?