Let's say I have domain with a very generic name. www.examplesite1.com with 10 categories that are sub-domains. So it would be like- (example) www.catory1.examplesite1.com www.catory2.examplesite1.com www.catory3.examplesite1.com etc. Would this be a cost effective way to making a few different sites in the same niche or will this hinder the SEO work I plan on doing in the future? It would like this- (example) www.mets.baseball.com www.angles.baseball.com www.yankees.baseball.com The same niches just breaking it down farther.
The down side to doing several domains (or sub domains) is that you'll have to build links to each domain separately. In addition, it will be harder to rank for 'baseball' in your example. The upside is that it might be easier to rank for 'mets baseball' by putting it on separate domains. I like to only create a new domain for broad categories because it helps me rank better for the entire category. I've found that over time when the domain brand strengthens the sub categories strengthen too. It takes some deep links to get #1 in google for the sub categories, but it is possible.
In SEO, subdomains are treated as a new domain. Sub domains are a cheap way of creating new domains. When creating subdomains you might want to ask yourself whether you would have bought all separate and similar domains, if possible? I wouldn't. Maintaining 10 sites is a lot more work, than maintaining one large site. Ranking with a large content rich site is more easy to then trying to cope with SEO for ten little sites.
Both good points. I think I would be better off if I did something like www.baseball.com/mets www.baseball.com/yankees