Building multiple websites with different domain names or single website with multiple language folder

Question

Which one is better for increasing PageRank:

1. Hosting multiple websites of different languages and interlink them
2. Host single website and create multiple language pages and interlink them

Answer 1

Good question.

If it is a duplicated content, ie, same content, but in another language, I think you should build just one domain, and use a

www.domain.com/en/pageName.html
www.domain.com/fr/pageName.html

structure.

However, if the content changes substantially according to locale, I think it is better use subdomains like:

en.domain.com/pageName.html
fr.domain.com/pageName.html

This because subdomains are proper for claiming a full subsection, with different type of content in they, and this structure improve the indexability for crawlers.

Answer 2

Host a single website with multiple language packs. If you host multiple different websites with a different language then your PR will be divided between the sites.