URL forwards: Best practice

There would be no point to the domains if you are redirecting to the main domain.
The only valid way to do a redirect like that is using a 301 (Moved permanently) - which would ultimately end with the regional domains becoming like dinosaurs.

Your best option would be to point each domain directly to the translated version of your site bypassing mydomain.es etc completely
How you do this will depend on what you are using (WP, Joomla), if it is your own code then you just need to add each domain and point them to the sub folder (I don't know the inner workings of your site)

Hi
Thanks for your answer
I am not sure what you mean with

The only valid way to do a redirect like that is using a 301 (Moved permanently) - which would ultimately end with the regional domains becoming like dinosaurs.

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Becomming like dinosaurus.. did not understand. You mean no use?

Your suggestion. Can you try to explain a bit more?
I did not understand the different between what you said was the best way and what I suggested or wanted to do

Thanks
Morten

The domains would never show in any results (extinct)
How are you linking to the domains? How are people going to find them?
When you mention SEO I assume you mean getting them listed in Google - if all you are doing is redirecting them then Google would eventually stop listing them and just show the destination domain.

Hm ok I see.
So best SEO solution is just to keep a main top domain (domain.com)
Not think about local national domains because it does not mean anything for SEO as long as its just linking to sub domains on the main site. Is that right?

Again keeping one top domain (domain.com) and just make a well structured website in different languages is in this case the best way to go when it comes to SEO?
Am i right?

Thanks for your replies so far

Regards

You can have all your domains pointing to the same doc root and then just route them as necessary
You didn't say what you are using for your site (custom code or what..)

What logic says domain.com/es will show the Spanish translation?
Whatever your logic is use that to serve the Spanish version when someone visits domain.es - it's all coming from the same code.

There is benefit to regional domains as they will list higher than non regional sites in local searches (usually)

Hi
We use Joomla 2.5
domain.com/es we use Joomlas own translation so the whole website will basically be translated and it will be a duplicate content of the english version that you find on domian.com

My idea was to buy a spanish domian name like "spanish.es" and link it to domain.com/es
with the hole that google would start to index this domain name with spanish content

I just wanted to find a way to make our website as good as possible to be found in local national searches without having to make several identical websites,one in each language

I know we are going a little back and forward, but I am still not totally sure whats the best way to procede so maybe you can give final verdict ? :)


Regards

Hi Gery123
Thanks for all your help on this. I have got wiser and think i know the way to go ahead now