Eastern Europe · EU candidate
SEO audit for websites in Moldova
Moldova is a Romanian-language market with a large Russian-speaking layer, a currency of its own and a country-code domain that most of the world reads as ‘medical doctor’. Those facts decide how you handle language targeting, spelling and domains.
The notes below cover what usually goes wrong, and what the audit checks, on a site aimed at Chișinău, Bălți or the Moldovan diaspora.
Moldova at a glance
- Languages and hreflang codes
- Romanian
ro-MDState language; Moldovan legislation has used the name ‘Romanian’ since 2023 - Russian
ru-MDWidely used in business, media and everyday life - Other
–Gagauz and Ukrainian are minority languages; they rarely need their own site versions
- Romanian
- Script
- Latin with ă, â, î, ș and ț. The last two use a comma below, not a cedilla.
- Domain
- .md is the country code, widely used as a domain hack for ‘MD’ and for Markdown.
- Native name
- Moldova
- Currency
- Moldovan leu (MDL)
- Calling code
+373- Postcode
- ‘MD-’ plus 4 digits
e.g. MD-2001 (Chișinău) - EU, EEA and Schengen
- EU candidate since June 2022, with accession negotiations opened in 2024. Not an EEA or Schengen member.
Market notes for Moldova
The comma-below trap: ș and ț versus ş and ţ
Romanian ș and ț belong to the characters with a comma below (U+0219 and U+021B). Look-alike letters with a cedilla (ş and ţ, U+015F and U+0163) were used for years because of old keyboards and fonts, and plenty of older Romanian-language pages still contain them. Users type either form.
For your own site the rule is consistency: use the comma-below forms in titles, headings, schema and the visible copy, avoid mixing both on one page, and test your priority queries with both spellings in the search box. If your CMS or database converts characters, check a sample page after a migration, because this is the kind of defect that spreads quietly across thousands of titles.
ro-MD or ro-RO: same language, different market
Romanian-language content from Romania is readable in Moldova, so it can rank there. A separate ro-MD version is worth the effort only if the page really differs: prices in MDL, Moldovan delivery and payment options, a +373 number, local legal text. If the only difference would be a flag, keep one Romanian page.
When you do publish both, give each version its own URL and link them with reciprocal hreflang tags (ro-MD and ro-RO), plus x-default if you have a selector. Do not copy a Romanian-market product page into a /md/ folder unchanged, because Google then has two near-identical pages to choose between.
What to call the language
The constitution of 1994 named the state language ‘Moldovan’, a 2013 Constitutional Court ruling said it should be called Romanian, and in March 2023 parliament replaced ‘Moldovan’ with ‘Romanian’ in legislation. In your interface, language selector and hreflang, treat the language as Romanian (ro). Older sources and some users may still use the other name, so look at the actual queries in Search Console before choosing which term to use in headings.
Russian deserves its own decision. A full Russian version doubles your maintenance, but many Moldovan users read Russian comfortably, so a service business with a Russian-speaking client base usually benefits from translating at least the service pages and contact details well.
.md: a country code with several lives
As well as being Moldova’s country code, .md reads as ‘MD’ for medical doctor and as the Markdown file extension, so it is popular as a domain hack for sites with no Moldovan audience. As far as we could find, Google has not listed .md among the vanity country-code domains it treats as generic, so a .md domain is likely to be read as aimed at Moldova.
That is useful if you are a Moldovan business and awkward if you run a global documentation site on .md. In the second case, a .com or other generic domain plus hreflang for the markets you really serve is the cleaner setup.
Copy-ready examples for Moldova
Both snippets use placeholder data. Replace the domain, name, street, phone number, coordinates and prices with your own before you publish them.
hreflang tags
This set covers 3 versions (ro-MD, ru-MD, en) plus an x-default. Put the same full set in the <head> of every language version, each page listing itself too; Google ignores pairs that do not link back.
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="ro-MD" href="https://example.md/ro/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="ru-MD" href="https://example.md/ru/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="en" href="https://example.md/en/" />
<link rel="alternate" hreflang="x-default" href="https://example.md/ro/" />LocalBusiness JSON-LD
The postcode follows the Moldova format (‘MD-’ plus 4 digits) and the telephone starts with +373. Use the most specific business type that fits, and keep every detail identical to your footer, contact page and map listing.
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "ProfessionalService",
"name": "Example Studio Chișinău",
"url": "https://example.md/ro/",
"image": "https://example.md/images/storefront.jpg",
"telephone": "+373 22 000 000",
"priceRange": "200-1500 MDL",
"address": {
"@type": "PostalAddress",
"streetAddress": "1 Example Street",
"addressLocality": "Chișinău",
"postalCode": "MD-2001",
"addressCountry": "MD"
},
"geo": {
"@type": "GeoCoordinates",
"latitude": 47.0105,
"longitude": 28.8638
},
"openingHoursSpecification": [
{
"@type": "OpeningHoursSpecification",
"dayOfWeek": [
"Monday",
"Tuesday",
"Wednesday",
"Thursday",
"Friday"
],
"opens": "09:00",
"closes": "18:00"
}
]
}What the audit looks at
What the audit checks for Moldova
UTF-8 and diacritic consistency
We check the charset and look for pages that mix comma-below ș/ț with cedilla ş/ţ in titles and headings.
hreflang pairs for ro-MD, ro-RO and ru-MD
The audit verifies that every Romanian and Russian version links back to the others, that codes are valid and that x-default is present when you use a selector.
Canonical conflicts between near-duplicate Romanian pages
If /md/ and /ro/ pages are almost identical, we flag the canonical setup so Google is not left to pick one.
Organization schema with MDL and a +373 number
We validate address, telephone and the postal code format MD-2001 and warn when the country is missing.
Questions about SEO in Moldova
Should I publish separate ro-MD and ro-RO pages?
Only when the content differs in a way users notice, such as prices in MDL, local delivery or a +373 number. Otherwise one Romanian page is simpler and avoids near-duplicate content.
Is the language called Moldovan or Romanian?
In legislation it has been Romanian since a law adopted in March 2023. For hreflang, the language code is ro. Check Search Console queries to see which term your audience actually uses in searches.
Is Moldova in the EU?
No. It has been an EU candidate since June 2022 and accession negotiations opened in 2024. It is not in the EEA or Schengen.
Does the .md domain target Moldova?
Probably, because Google has not published .md as a generic country-code domain, but .md is also a popular domain hack. If your audience is global, use a generic domain and hreflang instead.
Which postal-code format should structured data use?
Use the form your national postal service and Google Business Profile show, such as MD-2001 for Chișinău, and use it consistently on every page and listing.
Need a hand with Moldova?
If your Moldova audit turns up work you would rather hand over, two teams stand behind this tool. Nomor (nomor.tech) is our software development company and Limi Creatives (limicreatives.com) is our marketing company. Send us your report and tell us which market you are working in.
Nomor
Our software development company. Nomor designs and builds the software and websites behind this tool, including the audit engine, the PDF report and the pages you are reading. It is the right place to start for custom development, performance work and technical fixes.
Limi Creatives
Our marketing company. Limi Creatives is a creative agency that runs SEO, paid ads, content, social media and video for brands. It is the right place to start when you want help turning audit findings into traffic and enquiries.