Anyone know what the story is with regards to making a sub domain on an aged domain, does some of the 'age' rub off to the new sub? I have a number of aged domains, 4 years, PR3 and above with 1000s of pages in all the major SE's and i need to launch a number of test projects, would i see any benefit re ranking/sandbox etc by making a subdomain on these very aged domains or would it be the same as just making a brand new domain, ie its got to get a trust value of its own. Please ignore issues such as is the domain related to the orginal, is it part of the same site etc - the answer is no but i am looking at start launching some new affiliate marketing projects on subdomains to decrease costs etc. thanks
I think subdomains count as seperate sites (they are all treated seperately) thus will have the same effect as a new domain.
that was my orginal view point but noticed a lot of people of late are saying use them as the aged domain will mean the sub avoids the sandbox. Confusing
Sub domains gain some authority from the parent site. If the parent has authority (additional indented results, sitelinks in results, "plus box", quickly ranks for on-topic pages) sub domain can work very, very well. I think you may risk diluting the parent site if the sub domain content is too far removed fro the original, but it's worth experimenting with, and if you find that the main sites rankings start to slide you could get a domain for the new content and 301 the sub domain.