Google’s Unexpected Take On Site Folder Structure And SEO

Google’s John Mueller answered a mobility astir website class building successful URLs. The discourse was astir a website that offered the aforesaid contented successful aggregate languages and the personification asking the mobility wanted to cognize what was the champion measurement to building the class URLs.

The main tract is successful English, representing their superior market.

Their existent class building resembles:

• example.com/blog
• example.com/en-us/blog

and the internationlized versions person class structures for illustration this: site.com/fr-fr/blog

A personification asked the pursuing mobility connected Reddit:

“Do we request localized folders pinch copy contented for our location marketplace connected our site?
Hi all,

I’m acquainted pinch hreflang tags and mounting up alternate folders and references for different countries and languages, but I person a circumstantial mobility for our location market. My customer has a ample tract serving galore world clients pinch localized content, but they’re a US-based institution and that’s wherever the mostly of their personification guidelines is.

At the infinitesimal they person 25+ world localizations crossed each of their halfway folders, including a /en-us/ files for each their main pages.

The rumor is, the contented connected the main tract and successful these /en-us/ folders is the same, truthful we’re splitting page authority and creating imaginable copy contented issues which (as acold arsenic I tin see) supply nary discernible benefit….

Am I missing thing successful my knowing of this?

Is location immoderate circumstantial use to the /en-us/ folders we’d beryllium losing?

Are location different considerations aliases factors I should beryllium reasoning about?”

John Mueller’s Answer

Mueller’s reply focused connected the effect to analytics and being capable to accurately way the different visitors. His reply was indifferent to communal SEO concerns for illustration keywords aliases topical themes for the class names. That successful itself is absorbing and worthy considering.

Here’s his answer:

“I’d mostly urge conscionable one, but this apt isn’t going to make aliases break your site.

IMO the advantage of utilizing /en-us/blog/ alternatively of /blog/ for US contented (on an internation tract that uses /LL-CC/anything URL patterns) is that it’s easier for you to select & portion your metrics by country/language. I don’t deliberation you’d spot a applicable SEO quality betwixt utilizing /blog/ aliases /en-us/blog/ for your US content. /blog/ looks nice, but /en-us/blog/ is besides not super-weird.”

Many SEOs are rightfully concerned astir the tract architecture, pinch the words utilized successful class folders, pinch the main interest being if keywords are being utilized and really that mightiness power the expertise to rank, a interest the Redditor shared.

Mueller’s reply didn’t mention keywords but alternatively focused connected the applicable perspective of really that will look for analytics. In fact, he said that successful this circumstantial lawsuit he didn’t expect immoderate benignant of SEO difference.

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