Subdomain question

[Catfish]

I'd like to add some additional translations to my site. But my server host allows me to set subdomains as www.subdomain.maindomain.com only, not www. maindomain/fr.
Question: with solution #1, Google will not consider that subdomain as a part of the main site, right?

[Unknown Webmaster]

If you want the address to be www.maindomain.com/translation/file.html you can just make a folder called "translation" and place "file.html" inside that folder.

[Catfish]

If you want the address to be www.maindomain.com/translation/file.html you can just make a folder called "translation" and place "file.html" inside that folder.

Sorry I didnt make myself clear enough. This solution won't help. I am using Joomla CMS, and I need to be able to create a full installation in the subdomain. Can't use any translation plugin, because then I wont have full control over the page titles and URLs then.

[Michael Martinez]

Google has modified its rules for evaluating subdomains so it's not entirely clear whether a subdomain would still be regarded as a separate site, particularly if you're translating content.

However, a url of the form www.example.com/fr/ is treated by all parties (search engines, browsers, Web hosting services, etc.) as a folder within a domain. It would never be considered a subdomain.

I don't think you need to be concerned with actually setting up subdomains in the form of fr.example.com, es.example.com, etc. You won't lose any search engine credibility for doing that and it's a method that Google (at least) has endorsed.

[kingcobra]

I'd strongly recommend that you use directories for this not subdomains. Subs are considered part of the same site in some ways but not in every way. Using subs it won't be considered part of the same site completely and from an SEO perspective you're better off using the main site. For example you're setting off on your own with the sub and with the directories you're taking advantage of the home page in English or whatever and then having the other language home page as for instance main/fr.index.

Basically you mirror everything in the other language and just have all the French stuff for instance in the fr directory and so on. So instead of mainsite/bonus you have mainsite/fr/bonus, or whatever the hell bonus is in the other language, etc.

I just read Michael's post and I guess we posted at the same time I've read some people saying it's a tossup between subs and directories and I'm still skeptical myself of this and in particular how PR transfers to subs rather than directories. For instance you if you look at popular free sites which have yourcrap.thiersite.com you won't be able to tap into their PR or their authority with your stuff and it seems to me the same would be true with internal subs. If you could woudn't it be great though as all my sites by default can be listed as subs of my hosting domain which as PR5 and that would be great to connect with but unfortunately it's not that easy In my opinion anyway, subs do have their uses but only if you want to disconnect at least partially and in your case you really don't or shouldn't.

By the way Google endorsing something doesn't necessarily mean you want to do it as they have their own fish to fry and yours isn't always and usually isn't in their pan

[Catfish]

That confirms what I thought about it. My goal was to go for directories. Makes more sense, from the PR point of view, plus the translations will be seen as more content by Google. Google PR may be not the most important thing for the SERPs, but indirectly at least I guess it is. Having a site with decent PR makes it easier to get quality backlinks, which does of course help with the SERPs.
Now I have to find a way to create a mysite.com/fr directory, so that I can install a full independent Joomla site into that directory. You don't happen to know how to do this?

[kingcobra]

Well my idea of content management is that I type the content, publish the page, and it manages itself

I still have no idea what this stuff is good for actually The craziest thing is that like a lot of this stuff they presume you know too much about something. I went to their site actually to try to find out why I'd want this and their explanation is that it's like a library for your content. Why the hell would I want one? They don't tell you that. They do say that since this manages your content, you don't have to. What this even means or why I'd care about it isn't mentioned at all. Another example of open source geeks who may be good at programming but suck at communicating

[Michael Martinez]

I would go for the simplest, easiest-to-implement solution. That's probably folders rather than sub-domains.

[Catfish]

Actually it is. I have just done that with Joomla, it is so easy. One dedicated Joomla install in subdirectories for each language, and I have full control SEO-wise.
Thanks for the input guys