ccTLD
A top-level domain assigned to a country or territory, such as .de or .fr, which carries an inherent and unchangeable geo-targeting signal.
InternationalSubfolder vs subdomain
Subdirectory vs subdomain vs ccTLD
The three URL structures for international sites — example.com/de/, de.example.com and example.de — each with different authority consolidation and operational costs.
In full
Subdirectories keep everything on one hostname, sharing accumulated authority and simplifying technical maintenance, and are the most common recommendation where infrastructure allows. Subdomains sit between the two: technically separable, sometimes required by platform constraints, and treated by Google as part of the same site in many but not all contexts. ccTLDs maximise local signal at the cost of fragmentation. The right answer depends on market importance, engineering capacity and legal structure more than on any ranking advantage.
Example
A SaaS company moves from de.example.com to example.com/de/ during a replatform to consolidate link equity.
Related terms
International SEO
Structuring and optimising a site so the right language and country version is served to the right audience in each market's search results.
Geo-targeting
Signalling which country a site or section is intended for, through ccTLD choice, hreflang region codes, server location, local links and…
Site migration
Any change to a site's domain, URL structure, platform, template or content organisation that materially affects how search engines see it.
hreflang
An annotation declaring alternate language or regional versions of a page, so search engines serve the appropriate one to each user.