Global Site Structure: Part 2

Today, we will look at Nike’s website: www.nike.com. It is one of my favorite websites when it comes to a clean Global Structure. Nike.com is a true Global eCommerce site. It has different catalogs based on regions. Looking at it from outside, it looks like Nike has given special emphasis on two points –
They have regional catalogs – they do not sell the same merchandise in every region.
The structure is ready to cater to countries where multiple languages. I would like to see more languages in India.

They make it really simple to change the region. The regional setting are shown via Flag at the top right corner of the website. Each region has a homepage designed to connect with that region. Here is the home page for India.



Source Url: http://www.nike.com/in/en_gb/

If you look carefully at the url, you shall see that www.nike.com has a consistent url pattern [www.nike.om/<region>/<language>] ]which helps SEO, fallback rules, and discoverability.

If one wants to switch to a different region and a language spoken in that region, one can do so quickly by clicking on the Flag. They have implemented a special page which they refer to as Language Tunnel for switching between different regions and language sites spoken in that region.

Let’s look closer at the experience of switching the website from India (UK English) to let’s say Switzerland. When I clicked on the Indian flag, I was directed to Language Tunnel



Screenshot url: http://www.nike.com/language_tunnel

On this screen, when I clicked Europe, it listed all the country sites. Clicking on Switzerland opened a popup that listed four languages in which the site is offered. Here is how they do it today, please refer black pop-up where Nike.com offers Switzerland site in four languages – English, French, German and Italian:



Screenshot url: http://www.nike.com/language_tunnel

Clicking the language in the popup opens up the site with a Swiss flag on the top right. If you switch between different language sites for Switzerland, you shall see that they have a very consistent and clean url structure [www.nike.om/<region>/<language>] as I described earlier.

English: http://www.nike.com/ch/en_gb/
German: http://www.nike.com/ch/de_de/
French: http://www.nike.com/ch/fr_fr/
Italian: http://www.nike.com/ch/it_it/