Sub Domain VS Sub Directory

Here is a good question for you....

Say you own tools. com and you are going to be selling Makita tools...

Would you do this "tools. com/makita" or "makita.tools. com"

What would be better for SEO and why?

One of the criteria would be that if the domain is established, go with number 1, if not, then you would have a completely new domain (and site) with number 2.

If you want the most pages indexed for one keyword, you have better chances to rank multiple pages with number 2.

Number 2 also makes sense if you're building a section larger that just a page, rather a complete website, no matter how small.

If they're all closely related I would stay with sub directories. I personally like everything on one site but occasionally I do subdomains on bigger sites.

I always think sub domain have more authority than sub directory. Not in a search engine algorithm term, but as a user would view it. Especially, if you are using broad category such as "makita". So you can use something like this

Ideally exact domain keywords are the best for SEO. But honestly, with a bit more backlinking you can rank anything, whether it's a subdomain or subdirectory.

I've got some domains that ranked #1 for low competition keywords and they are exact keyword match domains. That was with NO backlinking. It does happen, you just have to find the keywords. Just proves the advantage of exact keyword domains.

If you want to rank for "makita tools" then choose the subdomain ...if you want to rank for "tools makita" then go with subdirectory...with that you will try get high proximity (this term is used in seo language...search google for it)

The problem with subdomains is just that.. they are subdomains and really should be used as an offshoot or even a vehicle for a completely separate part of your niche.

One mistake I often see.. goes like this..

say someone owns tools.com and thinks to him/herself I want an easy way to add some cheap content.. I know I will start a blog. They talk to their admin and admin recomends a subdomain. So next thing you know there is a blog.tools.com. 2 mistakes have been made here.

1) listening to admin
2) assuming admin knows about SEO, they rarely do.

Now the word that is on everyones lips these days is authority. More importantly we are aiming at building into our sites what Google believes is authoritative. There are lots of things you can do to build authority and there are people here on BHW who know alot more than myself so search out their threads. However one thing that seems to be a common thread around the web is that authority flows up and down a particular domain. So basically the way your articles interlink is "one" of the factors that determines authority. For all intense and purposes you can consider a subdomain as a separate domain and not part of your domains internal linking structure.

However after saying all this Google aint dumb and yes they do factor subdomains these days. They have even started including them in sitelinks. I think this started to happen with the latest update to sitelinks, not totally sure about that though, someone might know more and post here? Most of us know sitelinks is one indicator of whether Google thinks a site is authoritative for a keyword.

For those of you who don't know what Google sitelinks looks like. type "black hat world" into Google. Sitelinks never used to include subdomains, However now they do for an example type "pandora" into Google.

So where am I going with all this? once upon a time subdomains where excluded now they seem to be included. Well me being the paranoid person I am I say if it really makes no difference to how my site looks, I will go with the method that has "ALWAYS" worked? rather than risk getting the subdomains wrong somehow!

In the end which ever method you use will "probably" work, but for my money I will stick to the tried and true method.

brkseven said:

One of the criteria would be that if the domain is established, go with number 1, if not, then you would have a completely new domain (and site) with number 2.

Click to expand...

QFT

If you have an established domain that ranks well for keywords, doing subfolders will give your new content instant ability to rank.

If your root domain doesn't rank well for anything ... then either way is fine.

If you do a sub domain, you are starting from scratch with SEO, it is almost as though it is a brand new domain (except it is not going to rank as well as a separate domain would rank).

Use a sub domain if you're doing blackhat and it will shield your root domain from getting banned (but only if your root domain does not directly link to the sub domain).

Using subdomains works good when you don't have control over the content and don't want to babysit it (like if you are doing wordpress multiuser hosting -- make it subdomains).

Subdomain is good in my opinion and its a part of main website.

goinviral - "They have even started including them in sitelinks."

This is true... one of my domains recently shows 10 of my most popular sub-domains right under the main site url...

I would insist you to read this Matt Cutts's blog post... He is talking about the pros and cons of sub directories and sub domains.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/

Kaithe.Clarke said:

I would insist you to read this Matt Cutts?s blog post... He is talking about the pros and cons of sub directories and sub domains.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/

Click to expand...

Ancient information but still worth a read. thanks.

From my experience with wp-multisite sub-domain are better.