Hi Tyler, actually as it turns out Google made it possible for us to set geo-location preferences on sub directories, but after I wrote this post. I've added the update under the sub directories section of the post.
To your question, yes subdirectories do sound like an appealing way to go if your content is semantically the same from language to language version, because inbound links to one area of the site help to create the rising tide effect for the rest of the site (pooling your link equity resources) - but that's moving forward, if you've already got links built up pointing to different subdomains then you will want to 301 redirect those subdomains to the subdirectories on your single site if you do decide to make the switch.
Note that subdirectories can't be assigned an IP address which is also likely a geo location signal, but if you didn't already have IP's in their respective geo locations anyway then I think it's a mute point in your case. Also note that sub domains are generally a nicer way to reap more brand based searches, so if your brand is popular you may want to consider sticking with subdomains.
I would not redirect the user based on geo-location because from what I've seen, Google doesn't support redirecting based on location and only crawls from the United States, so geographic redirection may cause crawling problems. Google also makes the point that many people don't like being redirected automatically: they'd rather choose for themselves.
Another important point, if you geo-target a subdomain or subdirectory then you force that property to receive traffic from that geo-specific area only and are more likely to miss out on language specific traffic (e.g. if you geo-target to France you would then likely miss out on French speaking searchers in Canada, etc.).
Hi Tyler, actually as it
Hi Tyler, actually as it turns out Google made it possible for us to set geo-location preferences on sub directories, but after I wrote this post. I've added the update under the sub directories section of the post.
To your question, yes subdirectories do sound like an appealing way to go if your content is semantically the same from language to language version, because inbound links to one area of the site help to create the rising tide effect for the rest of the site (pooling your link equity resources) - but that's moving forward, if you've already got links built up pointing to different subdomains then you will want to 301 redirect those subdomains to the subdirectories on your single site if you do decide to make the switch.
Note that subdirectories can't be assigned an IP address which is also likely a geo location signal, but if you didn't already have IP's in their respective geo locations anyway then I think it's a mute point in your case. Also note that sub domains are generally a nicer way to reap more brand based searches, so if your brand is popular you may want to consider sticking with subdomains.
I would not redirect the user based on geo-location because from what I've seen, Google doesn't support redirecting based on location and only crawls from the United States, so geographic redirection may cause crawling problems. Google also makes the point that many people don't like being redirected automatically: they'd rather choose for themselves.
Another important point, if you geo-target a subdomain or subdirectory then you force that property to receive traffic from that geo-specific area only and are more likely to miss out on language specific traffic (e.g. if you geo-target to France you would then likely miss out on French speaking searchers in Canada, etc.).
Yes, move your blog to live on your main domain.