ccTLD, Subdomain or Subdirectory? International URL Structures for iGaming

For most international businesses, the structure is a trade-off between cost, maintenance and how clearly each URL signals its country. For a gambling brand, two more questions come first: what does each market's license require, and which entity operates each market? Answer those, then use Google's comparison for whatever is left open.

Google's comparison

Two facts from the same guide shape how much the choice matters. First, Google lists its signals for the intended audience as the ccTLD, hreflang statements, server location and other signals such as local addresses and phone numbers. Second, Search Console no longer offers a country-targeting setting, since Google deprecated the International Targeting report. So for subdomains and subdirectories, hreflang and on-page signals now carry the country information that the old setting used to add.

When the license decides

Spain: a .es website is required

Article 10.4 of Ley 13/2011 obliges licensed operators to set up a website specific to Spain under a .es domain name, and to redirect to it all connections from Spanish territory and from Spanish user accounts. On October 26, 2026, the regulator's operator search listed 77 licensed operators with their domains, and the domains on its first page were all .es. For a brand that also serves other markets, Spain therefore sits on its own domain whatever structure the rest of the group uses, and hreflang between the .es site and the other sites is cross-domain.

Germany, Great Britain and Canada: no domain rule found

In the sources we checked for this guide, we found no rule in Germany, Great Britain or the Canadian provinces that fixes the domain extension. What those markets do fix is who may offer gambling: the GGL whitelist lists permitted operators and websites in Germany, the Gambling Commission's public register lists British licensees, and iGaming Ontario keeps the directory of Ontario operators and their sites. Whichever structure you choose, the URLs you publish for a market should match the websites named in that market's register.

A decision path

1. List the legal constraints per market. Required domains (Spain), required registrations of websites (Germany's whitelist, Ontario's directory) and language duties (Québec).
2. List the operating entities. Different licensed companies often mean different domains anyway, and a subdirectory under another company's domain may not suit the license.
3. For the markets left open, pick by maintenance. One host with subdirectories is the easiest to keep consistent: one codebase, one deploy, one set of templates to annotate. Separate domains suit separate teams and separate infrastructure.
4. Avoid parameters and cookie-based versions. Each locale needs its own crawlable URL. Google calls parameters not recommended, and a version picked by cookie or IP is invisible to a crawler that arrives from the USA without one.
5. Write the structure into the launch plan. Hreflang, canonicals, sitemaps and redirects all follow from it. Changing it later means a migration.

Common mistakes

• Language folders that pretend to be countries. /es/ annotated as es targets Spanish speakers everywhere, including countries where the brand has no license. Use es-ES on the Spanish site and do not publish Spanish-language versions aimed at unlicensed markets.
• Two structures for one market. A brand that keeps both example.com/es/ and example.es for Spain splits signals and breaks the redirect duty. Choose the .es site and redirect the folder to it, page to page.
• Treating a subdomain as a separate site in reporting only. Whatever the structure, set up a Search Console property for each version you need to monitor. Note that the Change of Address tool works only on domain-level properties, which matters if you ever move one.

Questions

Which structure does Google prefer?

Google does not name a single winner. It lists pros and cons for country domains, subdomains and subdirectories and calls URL parameters not recommended. Pick the option you can maintain correctly, within each market's legal requirements.

Does a Spanish casino site need a .es domain?

Under Ley 13/2011, art. 10.4, operators licensed in Spain must run a website specific to Spain under a .es domain and redirect connections from Spain and Spanish accounts to it. Confirm details with Spanish counsel.

Does server location still matter?

Google still lists server location among its signals, alongside the ccTLD, hreflang and local details such as addresses and phone numbers. For ccTLDs Google lists "server location irrelevant" as a pro, and hreflang is the signal you control most directly.

Sources

1. Google Search Central, Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites, last updated December 10, 2025.
2. Google Search Console Help, The International Targeting report is deprecated, no date shown.
3. Google Search Console Help, Change of Address tool, no date shown.
4. BOE, Ley 13/2011, de regulación del juego (consolidated text), art. 10.4.d and 10.4.e, last amended December 31, 2022.
5. Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego, Buscador de operadores, checked October 26, 2026.
6. GGL, Whitelist of permitted operators, checked October 26, 2026.
7. Gambling Commission, Public register, last updated November 12, 2024.
8. iGaming Ontario, Regulated iGaming market (directory of operators and sites), accurate as of September 1, 2026; AGCO, List of registered internet gaming operators (points to that directory), no date shown.
9. Office québécois de la langue française, Sites Web, no date shown.