Know-How Exchange : SEO/SEM

https://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3509806.htm

This question opens Pandora's Box in regards to debating the finer points of subdomain vs subdirectory.

There are trust issues - would your audience trust your data more if it were separated from your main content? IE would you receive more site comments, forum posts, etc, if competitors could chirp in and prospects didn't fear being sucked into your sales cycle.

Then there are brand issues.

Creating a subdomain focused on a specific subject matter can help to focus visitors and may help conversions. Especially if the site is large and visitors can become distracted and, consequently, lost. This can work well with a corresponding and highly focused ad campaign.

There is a slight benefit to having the keyword in the domain name. But there is a benefit to having a larger site. So do you put all your content under one domain and benefit from that or do you separate it? If there were no other considerations I'd rather keep everything under one domain.

Will I get more Search Engine Results Page (SERP) listings using subdomains? Possibly but Google in particular is closing that loophole: https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/ and I suspect it will tighten more and more - they know it's a way to game the system.

If you link to the subdomain from the TLD you'll likely negate the separation of the two and you'll likely lose the benefit of the additional listings.

You also incur the additional parasitic drag of having to market numerous web sites when utilizing the subdomain tactic, thereby depleting resources.

Any inbound links to the main domain wouldn't benefit the subdomains if they were properly separated (hosts) thereby diluting your link development.

There are a lot of considerations.

In most cases, I tend to recommend sub directories over subdomains. The reason is that, for most small businesses, it's too difficult to manage and market one site. Adding complexity isn't typically a good thing. Larger business or budget? Sky's the limit.

I put this together rather quickly but, as you can see, there are a lot of considerations. What's best for you? Hard to say.

FWIW: We're launching a new site in the next few weeks (new identity, etc) and the blog will be in a subdirectory. As will all the sections of the site. But, of course, it's highly focused on SEO, so that makes sense for our site and resources.