Hello everybody,

i´m planing my portfolio-blog. This will be also a ressource where i´m offering free stuff for webmasters and designers, maybe a wordpress theme or free tutorials. You get the point. The blog will be written in german because my clients are all from germany. My problem is that i would make these ressources also available for the whole english speaking community.

What do you think, should i make two blogs? One .de and one .com with the same content but in a different language? Ore should i make a english/german button on the blog to switch the language? I´m a little bit concerned about that last idea in a SEO-view.

Suggestions? Has anyone had a same problem an solved it?

Two sites, different cctld's, nofollow linked to each other.

Why nofollow linked to each other?

Being as how neither blog exists yet and there is no PR to pass anyway, that's just how I would do it. Interlinking sites on the same c-class ip is frowned upon by some SE's and if they don't pick up on that then it looks like reciprocal linking. Some of this effect may be diminished by the fact that they're on different cctld's but if the hosts are both in the same country then that could have an effect also.

You can also make one blog in that format:

YourName.com (or .de, your choice)
en(or de).YourName.com (.de)

With that format, you install 2 different WordPress, your other in a different directory with the subdomain pointing there, and you put a link on your website going there. That way, you have 2 separate blogs that you can update individually, manage links, ads and stuff separatly.

And Google loves subdomains.

I'd recommend .com over .de if you choose to go with Fredto's method.

.de is a VERY strong cctld, but it will be easier to rank in german SE's with a .com than it will be to rank in US SE's with a .de

thank you for the nice help so far.

But another problem is right there. I heard rumors that my .com domain will be slower served from a german hosting company to US users. This is because there are so many stopovers. Is that right?

And Fredto, what did you mean exactly with "Google loves Subdomains", is that still true when the subdomains content is in another language?

Well, I don't know about the .com being served slowly from a German hosting company. From what I know, the location of the host matters, not the domain name (speedwise). It shouldn't change a thing.

And I always heard that Google loves subdomains, because it's a better way to separate the sections of a site. It may not still be true (or may not be true for content in another language) but it's what I heard.

Not to threadjack, but I gotta say I love that line in your signature...

"Remember, pillage first then burn."

Threadjacker!
Ban! Ban!

Thanks

Originally Posted by handsome rob

Being as how neither blog exists yet and there is no PR to pass anyway, that's just how I would do it. Interlinking sites on the same c-class ip is frowned upon by some SE's and if they don't pick up on that then it looks like reciprocal linking. Some of this effect may be diminished by the fact that they're on different cctld's but if the hosts are both in the same country then that could have an effect also.

You are way off on this!

Look at WebLogsInc - the biggest blog network on the internet and they interlink all their blogs and get amazing rankings in Google.

Lots of big companies interlink their sites. Google would cut out a lot of relevant and quality sites if it penalized interlinkers. Worst that would happen is it will discount the links (and if you are using the nofollow tag thats what you're doing anyway). But more likely you will get a ranking benefit and increased indexing.

Interlinking your own sites is natural - its only when you go crazy that it will cause problems - e.g make 100 sites in a month and link them all together.

Hope that helps

ok, i thinked a lot about this topic. my decision:

- i make two sites, one .com and one .de
- i´ll reference to the oother site in each case
- the link will be followable because i thrust in mrsolutions :1eye:
- i´ll host the .com site on a US hosting company so there shouldn´t be a "bad neighbour problem"
- and finaly i´ll do the same design for both sites, i don´t think there is a problem with that