The Question
If you serve both Chinese-speaking and English-speaking customers, one of the first technical decisions is: should both versions live on the same domain? The short answer for most businesses is yes — and here's why.
Option 1: Same Domain, Different Paths
Use subdirectories: example.com/en/ and example.com/zh/. This keeps all your content under one domain, consolidates SEO authority, and is the easiest to manage. One SSL certificate, one analytics account, one CMS.
Option 2: Subdomains
Use subdomains: en.example.com and zh.example.com. This separates the sites technically and lets you host them differently, but it splits your domain authority and complicates management — usually without real benefit for a typical business.
Option 3: Separate Domains
Use different domains for different markets, such as example.cn for China or example.de for Germany. This can help with local search rankings and local hosting requirements, but it multiplies cost, maintenance, and SEO effort.
What We Recommend for Most Businesses
Put Chinese and English on the same domain using subdirectories, with hreflang tags telling search engines which version to show where. This approach:
Keeps all your authority in one place
Makes multi-language management simple
Works well for both Google and Baidu
Costs the least to maintain
Consider a separate domain only if a market has strict local hosting or domain requirements — and even then, weigh the cost carefully.
The Bottom Line
One domain with clear language paths is the right default for Chinese and English websites. It's simpler, stronger for SEO, and easier for your team to maintain — and hreflang handles the language logic for search engines.