Which is better -- Subdomain or Subdirectory

There is lots of discussion on this in SEO gurus which is better..

I personally think it is depend upon your requirement.

Subdomains are treated as separate domain by Google. Means links from a sub domain to the main domain will probably be counted, but as weak links. The disadvantage is link to subdoimain is not counted as link to main domain vice versa means you are splitting link juices over domain and subdomain.

subdomains are Cost effective, esay for domain maintenance but they are difficult for site maintenance.

Content is most important part of site more content strong site. If you use subdomain you have to spread content over subdomains and each treated as different site.


I use subdomains only if I want to treat that subdomain as different site.

So its your decision you want to use subdomain or not?

 

thats right it really depends on the purpose of the page.. this is been issue before.... some might say subpage.. and have their own opinion...

 

let me give you an example

Your domain name is iluvdp.com

Your target keyword is : free psp downloads

instead of making free-psp-downloads.html it will be better to make a subdomain(free-psp-downloads.iluvdp.com) because it will be a lot easy to rank(domain name > most things) at SE because S.E counts it as separate domain.

BUT dont forget when you link to it (from iluvdp.com)it counts as an external link.You have to make link building for that subdomain

 

If you have a really strong brand and a high authority site subdomains are a good idea.

You can leverage them to dominate the SERPs for terms closely related to you brand name. If your site is newer I would not recommend them, just as rootbinbash says it will help you rank higher but you also have to then worry about building a link profile for 2 different sites.

 

Subdomains are treated as different domains and pass link juice so if you can do independent link building for your subdomain then go for it or else stick to directories.

 

If the keyword you are targeting is entirely different or remotely connected with your primary keyword then subdomain is better from SEO angle

If the keyword you are targeting is connected to your primary keyword then subdirectory is better

 

But to rank subdomain you have to put same efforts you do to rank your domain means you are increasing your efforts.

Yes link fro subdomain to domain is counted but it is counted as weak link but still better than nothing.

 

I would like to listen from other SEO gurus.

 

Ofc you have to do a little more effort.But not a lot more since you will also do a link building to that subfolder : )

 

I agree with you 100% ,

Thats actually the part many make the mistake on, They just link to the sub domains and never build links to the actual sub domains,

I do use sub domains here and there,

Running wild card dns is also a good option as well.

 

I agree that subdomains should not be used here and there. We should use subdomain only if we want to treat it separate site.

What do you mean by wild card dns?

 

How many times do I have to say this? Subdomains are used to present separate independent sections of a Web site. Take a look at CNN.com for example. You'll notice that subdomains are used for sections of the site that are not related to each other, but are still a part of the CNN network (such as Money). If the section of the site is a direct part of the main site (such as news or blog categories), then you should use a directory.

And yes, i watered down this post for a reason.

 

anythign that appears before your TLD is your domain name anything tat appears after is you page name

SE will give higher weight to the domain name than the page name.

if your site is

www.psp-downloads.com then you are as good as your gonna be but if you have

www.psp-discussions.com

i think that

http://www.downloads.psp-discussions.com will be a lot better

Subdomains are particluarly useful for MSN rankings the same as blogs are better for google

 

Blogs are not better for Google. Google (nor any other search engine) gives any preference to a blog just because it's a blog. And no, your example of the subdomain would not be better, either from an SEO or information architecture perspective. It could be argued (successfully I might add) that the downloads section would be a part of the main psp-discussions.com site and thus that a subdomain would not be needed. Whereas psp.console-discussions.com would be appropriate, since the PSP would be a separate console (I'm assuming you're referring to the PlayStation Portable here) system, but still related and relevant to console systems in general.

 

I would go with subdomain rather than subdirectory...

 

Why? Please don't repeat what you heard elsewhere, or give a "because everybody else is doing it" answer. Tell me why YOU would go with it. (Yes, I'm making you think about this.)

 

I shyed away from this thread because it always seems like an endless debate, I love this CNN.com example, I will be using this example myself. To think I view it everyday and never even noticed

 

I'm a Fox News Channel person myself, but I do love the way CNN.com is organized.

 

some search engines weight sub domains as different from index so make sure that when you link to a certain sub domain don't forget to promote that certain site to improve the weight and link popularity of that page so in return your link would benefit from it.

 

oh my apologies for replying to the thread. if i had realised god was already here i wouldnt have bothered posting.

your baseing your disagreements on what exactly?? I hope with that kind of response that you actually have some kind of backup for your comments?