Launching Your Translated Site Using Subdomains or Top-Level Domains

Steps to launch a translated site are as follows:

1. Choose a language subdomain.
2. Publish your language subdomain.
3. Create a language selector.

Choose a Language Subdomain or Top-Level Domain

Choose an appropriate domain name for each language of your target language websites. Each domain must be different so that traffic can be routed properly. For example, the best practice when launching a Spanish version for www.example.com is to choose a subdomain or country-code top level domain (ccTLD) such as es.example.com or www.example.mx. Prepend the international two-letter language code for that language to the top-level domain as a subdomain, or create a ccTLD.

Another option is to create language subfolders, but in order to do that your origin server must handle the initial request for the language specific page. For example, if you want www.example.com/es-mx to display the translated Spanish page, the request goes directly to www.example.com and something needs to tell that server where to get the translations. For more information, see Launching Your Translated Site Using Subfolders.

Top Level Domains (TLDs) versus Subdomains Letters after the last dot (.) in an internet address denote the TLD (.com, .org, .gov, and so on). ccTLDs exist for countries as well (.es for Spain; .fr for France, and so on). Configuring your language subdomain to correspond with existing language TLDs will make it easier for your customers to find your translated website.

Publish Your Domain

1. Obtain a CNAME or ALIAS/ANAME from your GlobalLink Web Proxy Implementation Manager. The CNAME alias is based on the geographic location of your target audience:

   • ja.example.com -> colo-jp-example.onelink-translations.com

   • es.example.com -> colo-usa-example.onelink-translations.com

   • de.example.com -> colo-euro-example.onelink-translations.com

2. Edit your DNS entries zone file for the provided CNAME or ALIAS/ANAME entries.
3. Your site is now soft live. In order for people to see it, create a language selector on your origin site.