Multilingual URL Structure Previewer
Compare subdirectory vs. subdomain vs. ccTLD for your languages, with pros and cons.
Example URLs
https://example.com/de/https://example.com/fr/https://example.com/es/Pros
- All authority stays on one domain
- Cheapest and simplest to host
- Easiest to set up hreflang
Cons
- Single server/location for all languages
The three options
When a site has multiple languages, each language version needs its own URL. There are three common patterns, and the choice affects SEO, hosting complexity, and cost.
Subdirectories — example.com/de/
The best default for almost everyone. All of your languages live on one domain, so the authority you build helps every language, hreflang is simple, and hosting is trivial. This is what most WordPress translation plugins use.
Subdomains — de.example.com
Lets you host languages separately, but search engines treat subdomains as somewhat distinct, so authority is more split. Choose this only if you have a real reason to separate the hosting.
Country domains (ccTLD) — example.de
The strongest local signal, and clean legal/market separation — but you buy and maintain a domain per country, and each starts building authority from scratch. Reserve this for serious per-country operations.
Our recommendation
Use subdirectoriesunless you have a specific, strong reason not to. It's the cheapest, simplest, and most SEO-friendly option for the vast majority of sites — and it's what Gloty uses. Once your structure is set, get the hreflang tags right and read the multilingual WordPress guide.
Gloty serves translations under clean subdirectory URLs (/de/, /fr/) — the recommended default — automatically.