Domains or Folders: What to Choose for a Multilingual Website

A client says: I want a website in Russian and English. You open the editor and immediately run into a question that sounds technical, but actually affects SEO: what will the page addresses look like?

Three options are on the table. Each has its proponents, but arguments often mix SEO, convenience, and technical limitations into one pile. Let's break them down in order.

Separate domains. Each language version lives on its own domain: mysite.ru and mysite.com or mysite.de. Sometimes country-specific domains are used: .ru, .de, .fr.

Subdomains. Language versions are separated at the subdomain level: ru.mysite.com and en.mysite.com.

Folders (subdirectory). All versions are on one domain, separated by path: mysite.com/ru/ and mysite.com/en/.

Google officially states that it can work equally well with any of the three options. In practice, there is still a difference.

Separate domains force you to promote several websites independently. Link juice, behavioral signals, and domain authority accumulate separately for each. If you have a strong .ru, it won't help .com at all. Domains for different countries (.de, .fr) signal to Google which country the site is targeting — this is a plus for local search, but only if you are willing to invest in promoting each domain separately.

Subdomains are technically separate from the main domain. Google may treat them as independent sites. This is a debatable point: officially they state that they consider the connection between subdomains, but practice shows that authority is transferred worse than with folders.

Folders are the most advantageous option from an SEO perspective. All language versions are on one domain, and its reputation grows in several regions and languages at once. There's no need to spread efforts across multiple sites: content, backlinks, and behavioral signals work for one domain. If you are already promoting the main site, a new language version in a folder doesn't start from scratch.

A separate domain should only be chosen if you genuinely plan to develop it as an independent brand in a specific country. For most agency tasks, this is overkill.

In general, geotargeting is a deep topic that we cover in another article:

Management. One domain is simpler: one SSL certificate, one analytics, one Google Search Console account (although you'll need to add versions as separate properties via Search Console for multilingual sites). With multiple domains, multiply everything by the number of versions.

Analytics. With folders, traffic is visible in one GA4 view, and filtering by language is easy via the URL path. With subdomains or domains, you either need to set up cross-domain tracking or view reports separately.

Language switcher. With a folder structure like /ru/ and /en/, the switcher can be built by rule, without storing page mapping. With separate domains, this becomes more complex, but Multify solves this problem: it automatically tracks all domains and correctly links pages to each other.

hreflang. It is needed for any structure — this is an attribute that tells Google which version is for which language and region. The only difference is the URL format in the attributes.

Tilda technically allows you to create folders, but they will not be related to different languages. You can create a structure like /en/ or /de/, but for search engines, all these pages will have the same language set in the project settings. Full multilingualism cannot be achieved with such a structure.

In practice, this scales poorly. When updating content, you have to update each language version separately. Add a language — create another version of the page. And if you have a blog, you will have to create a separate stream for each language, which greatly complicates content management. In addition, without proper setup, languages can "get confused" in search results, as it will be difficult for Google to determine which content is intended for which audience.

But there is a way to get folders without these difficulties.

Multify works as a proxy layer: the request comes to mysite.com/en/, passes through the proxy, which substitutes the desired language version and delivers it to the user and search engine. Tilda does not know what is happening: it works as usual.

As a result, you get a folder structure (/en/, /de/, /fr/) with full SEO: one domain, growing authority, correct hreflang. At the same time, the site itself remains on Tilda without any changes in settings.

Hreflang is generated automatically with this approach — no need to manually specify attributes for each page.

If you are implementing multilingualism via a proxy — choose subfolders. This is the best SEO option, and with Multify, it's available on Tilda without workarounds.

If for some reason a proxy is not suitable (for example, the client insists on independent implementation) — a subdomain is better than a separate domain for most tasks. It is easier to manage and theoretically linked to the main domain.

A separate domain is justified only in two cases: if the client wants a country domain like .de or .fr as part of local branding, or if the language versions will be developed as independent projects with different teams.

In other cases, subfolders win.

Officially — yes. In practice, as many SEO specialists note, subfolders yield results faster because the new language version immediately inherits the domain's authority. A subdomain starts closer to zero.

Yes. hreflang is needed for any option, otherwise Google may not understand which version is for which region and show the wrong page in search. When working through Multify, hreflang is generated automatically.

Yes, but it requires redirects and re-indexing. It's better to choose the final structure right away. Moves always carry the risk of a temporary drop in rankings.