Should I Use Primary Domains For Multiple Target Countries (Using Same Language)?

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Topic summary

A Shopify store owner with the UK as their primary market seeks advice on the best domain structure for expanding to other English-speaking countries (US, Canada, Australia) while optimizing for SEO and user experience.

Key considerations:

  • Whether to use subfolders (e.g., /us, /ca) or stick with a single primary domain
  • How to handle currency differences across markets

Main advice provided:

  • Use the primary domain with subfolders for target countries to reduce complexity and simplify paid ad feed management

Important clarification:

  • Shopify’s Primary Domain Configuration uses language-based subfolders (e.g., /en-us), not country codes
  • A /ca subfolder wouldn’t exist unless adding French language (/fr), which would then create /en-ca and /fr-ca
  • Without multiple languages, no subfolder structure is created for the primary market language

Technical notes:

  • Subfolders are indexed by search engines when the sitemap is properly submitted, though indexing takes time
  • Currency and pricing can display correctly based on user location/browsing context
  • One user reported challenges with US currency indexing in their /en-us subfolder

The discussion remains open with users seeking additional insights and solutions.

Summarized with AI on November 14. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Background:
My primary market is UK, I also want to expand to US / Canada / Australia (English-Language countries)
In such case, whats the best domains solution for SEO & User experience? ( I use shopify payments to solve currency issue)
1, I use only Primary domain, for all the English-Language countries.
2, I use subfolders , like/us, /ca for different countries, even they use same language.
Thanks

2

Hi @Shawn512

It is best to use the primary domain and add the other target countries as subfolders. This reduces the complexity, and you can easily send the feed to different marketplaces for different ads.

Feel free to contact us if you need assistance setting up your store or feed for paid ads.

3

Hi SShawn512,

Have you found a solution to this issue? Could you share it with me?

I’m facing a similar challenge. My primary market is the UK, and I’m also trying to expand into the US. I’ve noticed that using a subfolder, like https://nokayadesign.com/en-us, doesn’t allow search engines to index the US currency version properly. This makes SEO optimization for the US quite challenging. I’ve encountered this when checking the Google cache: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:t4iPRt9fjXAJ:https://nokayadesign.com/

I appreciate any insights you might have. Thank you in advance for your response.

Best regards,
Tetyana

4

This advice is wrong because it is not possible to have a /ca subfolder because ‘ca’ is not a language. When using Primary Domain Configuration the subfolder structure is language only NOT country.

Using primary configuration there would be no subfolder structure unless you have multiple languages, i.e. if you had French you would have /fr. English as the primary market language would not create a subfolder.

Using subfolders would result in /en-ca for Canada and /en-fr if you add French language.

5

The subfolders are indexed so long as you have resubmitted your latest sitemap which correctly contains the en-us subfolders https://nokayadesign.com/sitemap.xml. It is not instant and may take a while to reflect in Google. Browsing context in google is also important, I can verify VPN browsing from UK I see GBP price listing in Google and VPN browsing via USA I see USD pricing and a link to the /en-us subfolder version. Your website indexing is working well!