Organizing same website in different languages on a single domain

Question

I have my personal website made with Sphinx. It generates static HTML pages. Currenty, the content is just in English or German only. I would like to expand this to multiple languages. I do not know how to structure my URLs, yet.

The following should be done:

• Static folders like /_download, /_download and /_images must still be on the server only once, I do not have that much space.

• The languages might be on equal footing, but that is not that important.

• Old URLs still work without a problem and default to English. I do not want to cause a single 404 error.

I currently have the following ideas:

• Put the English site on `example.de/, put the German site on de.example.de/ and redirect de.example.de/_download to example.de/_download with a .htaccess file.

• Put the English site on example.de/ and put the German site on example.de/de/. Redirects as above.

• English site on en.example.de/ and German on de.example.de/. And redirect for all languages.

• English site on example.de/en/ and German on example.de/de/. Redirects as above.

What would make the most sense?

Answer 1

While the .de domain suffix indicates Germany, many folks associate .de with German. Displaying English by default adds confusion, which acts as a roadblock to those seeking other languages.

Setting the English site on en.example.de and German on de.example.de is most consistent, and will be most easily intuited by your multi-lingual audience.

Another option, which was not listed by the OP, would be to set the English site on example.de/en, and German on example.de/de.