Architecture6 min readUpdated
Canadian adult site architecture: open pages, gated areas and two languages
A Canadian adult site has more layers than most: an open front, a gated area, often two languages, and delivery or tax rules that change by province. Laying those out clearly from the start saves years of patching. This note sketches a structure that search engines and customers can both follow.
1The layout at a glance
/Home: safe for work, open to all/shop/, /guides/, /help/Categories, buying guides, delivery, returns, privacy/locations/toronto/Only if you have premises/fr/...French versions of the open pages/verify/The age check itself: not indexed/members/ or /explicit/Behind the check: adult-rated, not indexed
A simplified example. Your paths will differ.
2The open front
Everything a search engine should index sits in front of the age check: the home page, categories, guides, help and location pages. Write it all to be safe for work, because it is what people and search engines see first. This is also the part that would stay public if Bill S-209 becomes law, so building it well now is not wasted effort.
3The gate and what is behind it
Place the age check in front of the gated section only. Mark gated pages with the adult rating, keep them out of the sitemap and out of the index, and make sure crawlers meet the same check as people. Our technical SEO page lists the checks we run.
4English and French
Google's guidance for multilingual sites is to give each language its own URL, rather than switching language by cookie or browser setting, and to connect the versions with hreflang annotations. A /fr/ folder on the same domain is the simplest way for most businesses. Each French page should link to its English twin and back, and be a real translation. The detail is in our note on English-French SEO.
5Provinces and cities
Create a province or city page only when something real differs: premises, delivery times, tax, language. One clear delivery page covering every province and territory usually serves better than thirteen thin ones. Link every open page back to its category and forward to related guides, so both people and crawlers can move through the site without dead ends.
6A structure ready for Bill S-209
If the bill passes, sites that make explicit material available commercially would need approved age checks, and the government would set the standards. A site whose open and gated sections are already separate by URL can add or change a check on the gated section alone, with no effect on the pages that carry its search visibility. A site that mixes explicit thumbnails into every page cannot, and would face a rebuild under deadline. Separation now is cheap insurance.
7Categories that work in both languages
Plan categories once and translate them, rather than letting English and French grow apart. Each English category gets a French twin with a natural French name, not a literal translation, and the same products. Keep URLs readable in each language, link the pairs with hreflang, and make the language switch on each page lead to its twin rather than to the home page.
8Help pages are part of the structure
Delivery, taxes by province, returns, privacy and how billing appears on a statement are among the most searched pages on Canadian adult stores. Place them in the main navigation or footer of every page, in both languages, rather than burying them in an FAQ. They answer questions people search before buying and reassure those who arrive from a product page with doubts.
9A sample layout
| Section | Open or gated | Indexed? |
|---|---|---|
| Home, about, help, policies | Open | Yes, both languages |
| Categories and products | Open, safe-for-work images | Yes |
| Guides | Open | Yes |
| Store and city pages | Open | Yes, where something real differs |
| Explicit galleries or video | Gated | No |
| Search results, filters, accounts | Open or private | No |
10Changing structure safely
Restructuring a live site moves URLs, and every moved URL needs a single redirect to its closest new equivalent in the same language. Record what each old URL earned in visits and links before the change, check the redirects on launch day, and watch indexing in both languages for the following two months. The technical service that handles this is described on technical SEO.
11Navigation that reads well to people and crawlers
Keep the main menu short and predictable: the top categories, guides, help and the store or contact page. Use plain words in both languages and make every menu item a real link that works without scripts. Breadcrumbs on every product and category page show where a page sits and give search engines a clear map of the site. Avoid menus that pull explicit images into every page; they bring the whole site into SafeSearch filtering and can show material before the age check.
12URLs that last
Choose short, readable addresses that describe the page, such as /toys/vibrators/ and /fr/jouets/vibromasseurs/, and keep them stable. Avoid dates, product codes or session values in URLs for pages you want to rank, and never change an address just to add a keyword. Every change needs a redirect and costs some ranking for a while, so it is worth getting the scheme right before a site grows.
13Internal links between the layers
Guides should link to the categories they discuss; categories should link to their most useful guide and to nearby categories; products should link back to their category and to help pages on delivery and care. None of the open pages should link straight into gated content without the age check in between. That pattern helps shoppers move from questions to products, and helps search engines understand which page answers what.
14A checklist before you build
- List every page type and mark it open, gated or private.
- Decide the URL pattern for each type in both languages.
- Decide which pages need a French twin and who will write them.
- Plan where help, policy and delivery pages sit in the navigation.
- Agree which filters, if any, become proper landing pages.
15Images on the open pages
Product and category images on open pages should be safe for work: products in packaging or on plain backgrounds, never in use. Give each a descriptive file name and alt text in the page's language, and serve them in modern formats at sensible sizes for phones. One explicit image in a shared template can pull the whole open section into SafeSearch filtering, so check templates as well as individual pages.
16Account and wishlist pages
Logged-in areas such as accounts, order history and wishlists should never be indexed. Keep them behind login, exclude them from sitemaps and leave them out of internal links on open pages. For adult stores this is a privacy point as much as a search one: a wishlist or order page that leaks into search results could reveal what someone bought. Check the robots rules and server responses for these areas after every platform update. Indexing checks are covered in our note on Canadian adult indexation.
QQuestions
Should French pages be on a separate domain?
Usually not. A folder such as /fr/ on the same domain is simpler to run and keeps the site's signals together, provided each page links to its counterpart.
Where should the age check sit?
In front of the gated section only, not the whole site, so the open pages stay visible to people and search engines.
Do we need a page for every province?
Only where something differs, such as delivery times, taxes or language. Otherwise one clear shipping page covering all provinces is better.