Subdomain Vs Main Domain SEO questions

[miketpowell]

How much difference does it make to put content on a subdomain instead of a sub folder?

For example if I want to build out a long tail directory with many pages or blog it can go in either a subdomain or folder on the main domain.

What are the pros and cons of each SEO wise?

 

[Calamari]

If you want to harness the full power of your existing domains authority to capture long tail traffic, keep it on the main domain.

I don't know of any pros of using subdomains.

 

[miketpowell]

If you want to harness the full power of your existing domains authority to capture long tail traffic, keep it on the main domain.

I don't know of any pros of using subdomains.

Dang I was hoping that wasn't the case. I've heard mixed things over the last year but it seems sub domain is probably not the way to go...

 

[Golan]

Links to subfolder => passing to the root.
Links to subdomain => terminating at the subdomain, not passing to the root.

 

[Philip J. Fry]

Google treats subdomains like subdirectories. The only difference is that, your homepage, will probably be sending more like juice to your subdirectory than your subdomain (it depends on how your navigation is), hence why a subdirectory would rank easier.

I'd do as Cutts recommends and choose a subdomain when the topic is different than that of the main domain.

 

[RomesFall]

I've ranked a sub-domain for local terms and the main domain for national, in SEO services funnily enough.

This was about 2 years ago mind, but regardless even at the time people were saying it's a bad idea and doesn't work etc...

I did it as more of a test, but this was when I first really started playing around with relevancy.

Like @Philip J. Fry says navigation, linking structure and topic play a big part here...

You can get pretty manipulative with your on-page and link building, which is what I did and it ranked for a long time, but the downside is that it's a lot of work that could backfire, could waste a lot of time and of course in my case it was for services and I have no idea if this would work outside of a services scenario, or even if it still works.

If I were doing a directory I would almost definitely opt to keep it in a sub-folder and build a silo.

 

[lion1978]

I have no idea if this would work outside of a services scenario, or even if it still works.

it still works also outside the service scenario