Sub Domains (or) Sub Folder Which is Better in SEO & SERPS?

I have couple established websites and I want to add couple sections in the website example -
Main website is - abcd.com
Should I add newsubdomain.abcd.com or abcd.com/newsubfolder?

I have seen in case of blogger.com that the member sub domains get individual PR and Alexa ranks and it’s not related to the main domain blogspot.com
i.e. yourname.blogspot.com will get the PR with your own added backlinks and it won’t get any PR value from the main domain, so from this example i feel subdomains are confidered completely different from the main domain names.

But in case of Sub pages when they are linked from the main abcd.com they get the PR passed from homepage and even the traffic coming to those pages are counted towards the same domain and shown in Alexa.

From these 2 situations which is the best option for SEO for a better rankings, because I feel that if sub domain is added the SEO on it should be started from beginning and incase of sub page we can get easy rankings.

What is your suggestion?

 

Google treat sub-domain as different site. So think what is your plan for your website and take action according to that

 

I know but sometimes Sub-domains are also treated as a part of the main website - Check out Nintendo's Thread where he found spam sites which had tonnes of sub domains and they helped the complete site ranked

So after seeing these what would you still suggest?

 

Sub-domains are considered like a completely new website, you have to build trust / rankings / links etc for them on their own

http://www.viperchill.com/articles/sub-domains-1.php

 

I would say folders are better, if you have something related to the websites theme.

 

i would also recommend subfoler.

 

Sub-domain and Sub-folders are treated differently.

Sub-domain are separate site in themself gaining PR and rankings individually and the main website does have effect on the PR.

Sub-folders are part of the website and lie below the main tree structure of the site. PR is influenced by home page PR.

 

If all the info is on the same basic theme, use subfolders. I only use subdomains with something that really veers off the site theme.

 

I think it depends on the competitiveness of the keyphrase you are targeting with the new section. If you are going after something relatively easy then a subfolder can get you there quicker, but it will be hard to get the new folder to be more relevant than the main page of the site.
If you have more time to achieve your rankings the I'd go with a subdomain, better yet, just register a new domain name related to your keyphrase and build a new site. It may take even longer to get rankings than the subdomain would but you'll be happy you did in the long run.