Which is better for SEO: Subdomains or Subfolders?

[zelph]

What is better from an SEO standpoint when adding a new Market, Subdomain or Subfolder -

[coleatkinson]

Generally speaking if you need/want a different URL for a different market, subfolders are going to be the most performant SEO-wise.

[sampymishra]

Hi @zelph 

If you want to have the same domain for all the different markets, it is advisable to use subfolders. Subfolders are easier to set up. You can have the same domain and set up region-specific URLs. This will help when you plan to advertise the products on Google. You can manage all the feeds using a single merchant and ads account. 

If you also think of SEO benefits, getting all the traffic to the same domain will help.

[Carlo_Hive365]

Appreciate the superior SEO performance of subfolders over subdomains, is there any limitation of using this setup though for a key growth market such as the USA? As implemented per the Shopify default in Shopify > Markets > Domains  [www.stableofireland.com/en-us/].

[coleatkinson]

If the USA is an international market for you, no issues with this approach. /en-us is on the same level as any other country subfolder like /en-ca for Canada etc etc.