My website has 29 cities. Each city is a sub domain. Would it be better to incorporate these into just one big site. What are the advantages or disadvantages of subdomains?
Hi, I also contemplated doing the same thing for my domain, however, I discovered that each subdomain is treated as its own separate site and therefore all links to each subdomain would dilute the effect on the primary domain. So, instead, I decided to concentrate on my primary domain, which has worked so far. However, I am experimenting with using subdomains in conjunction with my primary domain so there is no dilution or repetition, and if I come up with anything, I will pass it on. Rich
A large site with lots more attractive and less spammy looking than than 29 small sites. The other advantage of one large site is that when the main page gets PR, it normally is passed on to the inner pages. The advantages of sub domains is that you have basically several unique sites that may attract traffic of those interested in just one certain city. You can sell links on 29 different sites if that is your goal. It is also easier to promote a sub domain than an inner page of a larger site. For me, I prefer the larger site because the more original content you have on a site, the more people will want to visit and the better you rank in the SERP.
I would make the cities have there own subfolder rather then a subdomain. This way the PR will get passed onto them. With a sub domain, they will get treated as a whole new site and those pages will not share the PR with the rest of the site. For each city I would make them like: www.sitename.com/cityname