I am wondering if a subdomain (subname.name.com) is treated the same as just a regular domain name (domainname.com) by google and other engines. I am planning on starting up a handful of sites and while domain name arnt that expensive, it would be a whole lot cheaper just to use sub domains.
In many ways they are treated as different domains. For example, in google it will only list two results in a row from the same site. If you have a different subdomains with unique content but on the same topic, you could own the results page, filling it up with your two results form each of the relevant subdomains.
-GuyFromChicago I mean treated as a unique individual domain with different keywords and and complete unique position in a SERP
And when you read it you will see that it is still possible: batman4444, the use of sub domains really depends on the circumstances. I think it's practical to use sub domains in some cases and in other cases it makes sense to use new domains. For example, I if I own 10 car dealerships in 10 cities it could make sense to use sub domains. I could end up with urls like chicago.mycardealership.com madison.mycardelaership.com newyork.mycardealership.com etc. Now if I only own a car dealership in one city and wanted to start a site about my pets I would get a new url for the site. mypets.mycardealership.com would be pretty dumb looking...to both search engines and people.