Local domain vs subdomain vs subdirectory for localized content

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Mateusz Mucha: Local domain vs. subdomain vs subdirectory for localized content.
  
  Hi, we're buidling a website with hundreds of pages. They will be translated to other languages. We're going after very competitive keywords (mainly because the search volume is considerable), but our website will have higher quality and cover a larger portion of the market than any of (hundreds of) competitors. We'll also be the only internationalized site (the competition on non-English markets is always local).
  
  I need to decide how to structure URLs. German example:
  
  1. https://domain.de
  2. https://de.domain.com
  3. https://domain.com/de
  
  The former solutions probably yield some SEO benefits - how big is it? It comes with considerable drawbacks - sessions won't carry over from domain to domain, websites are somewhat harder to maintain and slightly more expensive to run (extra domains, SSL certificates, we'll need more expensive analytics plans, etc.).
  
  What URL scheme would you recommend?
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  Dave Elliott: folder, always a folder! Much better for links and passing authority between the localised sites
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  Rahul Chauhan: Option to go with folders is always the best one, easy to handle and manage and will also have some other SEO boost to carry forward as mentioned by @Dave Elliott. ;
• 
  Mateusz Mucha: Awesome, thank you. It's also by far the most convenient.
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  Chase Reiner: The other problem of having a sub domain (this may not be accurate, correct me if I'm wrong) is that it will basically be treated as another site. Like the other gentleman said, go with a sub folder!
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  Edwin Jonk: From the expert panel in this week's SEO Questions hangout on air on 00:17:35 into the YouTube video: https://dumbseoquestions.com/q/local_domain_vs_subdomain_vs_subdirectory_for_localized_content +Mateusz Mucha
  
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