Multilingual support based on sub-domains

[Visiedo]

Hi,

I saw several discussions in the forum and some blogs, that in one way or another goes around this topic. Still I did not see anything conclusive. Let me try to explain my requirements:

• Multilingual site, where every language is accessed from a different subdomain, e.g.:
  
  • es.mysite.com => Spanish
    
  • en.mysite.com => English (default)
    
  • www.mysite.com => Default
    

  [*]Both sites share the same catalog. Sharing customers / orders is not a must

  [*]Be able to select a different languages with the module "languages"

  [*]Have one "Robots" per subdomain

  [*]Search engines must be able to index my subdomains as separate sites and associate to the corresponding language

In the different articles / discussions I saw, I found some people claiming it could be done with the PS 1.5 multisite feature (not convinced, and no one managed to fully explain how). Others claim multisite is not necessary, and it should be supported by prestashop already, and finally others are selling dedicated modules for that. Honestly I would prefer not to use a module, I would consider such a feature quite core for PS, still it looks like the multilanguage support was not design with that in mind from the beginning.

 

Any ideas or debate is really welcome ;-)

Cheers

/Javier

[El Patron]

multishop (domain) when used in conjunction with ccTLD's...is the best SEO approach..on the planet..

 

though you prefer not to use module solutions, others may be interested in our mature solution...supports many things but yes your language by domain...

 

http://www.etiendas....ain-pro-14.html

 

p.s. with your example domains above...you would be penalized for duplicate content

Edited December 8, 2012 by elpatron (see edit history)

[Visiedo]

Thanks a million for your response. What do you mean by:

 

with your example domains above...you would be penalized for duplicate content

 

Would it be better to have different domains rather than subdomain?

 

If I could have different sitemaps per language / subdomain, I guess the search engines would consider it as two different sites, or? Please forgive me since I am not much into SEO issues.