I have a very simple question for which the answers are not clear yet.

After reading multiple forums trying to find the pros and cons of both sub-domains and folders I got even more confused. It is not clear, whether sub-domains are a better solution than folders.
What is their impact?
Why choose one option over the other one?
This subject is very controversial and yet not very clear to me. Could someone advise?

Which is better sub-domain or folders? Why?

Both are (or can be) a way to organize your sites content.

If you use folders each different folder will contribute to the sites theme and the links between the pages will be considered as internal links.

If you use subdomains each subdomain is considered as a seperet site and thus each subdomain would be on there for the subject presented. Links between the subdomains are considered as links to and from external sites.

From an SEO standpoint I prefer subdomains. From the user perspective each can be equally effective if you use a common menu system to link the internal pages and the subdomain pages.

Thank you for your answer.
I come from an SEO standpoint.
Now, what makes you prefer subdomains to folders? What is the impact of those options and how does it affect SEO?

Did you read the thread here:

http://www.webworkshop.net/seoforum/viewtopic.php?t=22647

This might already have the answers you're looking for...

Ulrich, what are you doing up so late? Dont you have to be at work early in the morning?

Your manager will be pissed if your late.

Most of the forums that I've visited favors folder rather than sub domain. Most of them says that Folder is more SEO friendly...

Well I suppose they are entitled to their opinion, but I can show a pretty good case for subdomains.

There is no way that folders are more search engine friendly than subdomains. I would be very interested in them explaining how thjis could be.

imo it depends on the scale of the site and if the section 'deserves' its own subdomain

lets say you are a shop selling bottles with the domain .www.glassproducts.com

home, about us, etc
blue bottles - small blue bottles, medium blue bottles, large blue bottles
red bottles - small red bottles, medium red bottles, large red bottles
yellow bottles - small green bottles, medium green bottles, large green bottles

each of the categories should go in folders. the size of the site does not warrant sub.domains. the site would benefit more from the related content sitting on and interlinking on the main domain

now lets say you are a glass product manufacturer and as well as making thousands of types and sizes of bottles, you also specialise in making other glass objects. each relevant to each other because of the brand (glassproducts.com) and because they are made of glass but each glass object has a different purpose and varying target markets:

bottles.glassproducts.com
mirrors.glassproducts.com
glazing.glassproducts.com

the subdomain is favoured over a folder in this case so each 'site' can maintain its own 'flavour'. if your site is all about mirrors it has more potential to become stronger for mirror related searches than if it were about mirrors AND bottles AND glazine AND other products made of glass..of course it is still strong for 'Glass' search variations but since you want to target users looking for your specific product, subdomains enables you to be more specific in targetting your market.

in my experience launching another product on a subdomains (rather than a separate domain) is received very well, they are seen as a separate site but the connection with an already established domain is recognised and the subdomain gains a 'foot in the door'.

downpoints have been that directories are less inclined to accept a submissions from a sub (but that is improving). And subdomains still arent really liked by 'the public' despite their wide use by corporates such as google, bbc, etc because they arent 'sexy' - sounds funny but users like catchy, easy to read urls and those that require you to add a . or a - arent liked as much as those that arealloneword.com...yet!

I would Google would come out and blatantly explain the algorithmic implications of subdomain vs. subfolder use.

...but that would be too easy.

i dont believe there is any big secret about subdomains G. info is there if you look for it and if you try it out yourself it snaps into place

not only that there has been widespread subdomain abuse, if google came clean with its algorythms it might as well give up

Thats not exactly what I mean. Information about the value of internal vs. external links and domain trust/authority values are never clearly proven when it comes to subdomains.

like 50% of seo practises then...that's when actual experience comes into it but even then it would be difficult to attribute an effect to a single activity. the more you physically implement the more you actually understand rather than gathering opinions and 'evidence' from other peoples blogs and writings. in many of those cases you dont actually SEE the proof anyway, you just take their word for it. im always wary of people who seem to have a lot of time to write, when exactly are they EXPERIENCING what they write about? i dont believe something is so just because someone else has said so, i dont care who they (think) they are.

Good point.

I guess this is the problem for any review. You just have to open your mind and trust your own judgment and analysis.

Thanks for your input.

Both directories and subdomains work well So it's down to implementation. I prefer using subdomains, especially when incorporating microsites into a site architecture. Google, Yahoo! etc. all use subdomains to do the same thing.

Both folders (directories) and subdomains work well Neither one is more SEO friendly... just use what you feel is best.

If you have a website with a consistent layout throughout, then you would probably want to use directories.

If you have three "satellite" or microsites, most likely with different layouts, then adding and incorporating three subdomains into your parent domain would be a good move.

You have a point Yomanze. It really depends on the site structure and implementations. We must also consider the importance of unique and informative contents.

And Google will be changing the way they handle subdomains.. In the very near future they will be seen the same as folders..

From Tedster at Pubcon


Weeeeeee.. More changes to take in to account when designing your site navigation..

Won't need to worry about changing anything like navigation or site architecture in light of this news Steve. It'll just mean that either/or can be used and they'll be treated the same.

The matter of when and when not to use subdomains also remains unchanged. Just use them when you want a "site within a site", rather than a child page of your main website.

I think this is a good move on Google's behalf, because it does stop companies (including ones that I've optimised) taking up half of the first page in results! I'd rather see a couple of highly relevant results from a domain and 8 "independent" results on the first page.

I think there are more implications to this than what meets the eye. You can draw various conclusions from the wording.

No, you don't need to "change" anything, but it does make designing your navigation from the start a new issue.. But it does have some SEO implications..

About the only people it will really affect are the guys doing the subdomain spamming..

^^ Nail on head

If possible, I want to jump in with a question. If I go to sub.domain.com, then that url is what you see. But if I point my browser to www.domain.com/sub, it shows me the same webpage... Isn't this duplicated content? (I use Direct Admin for creating subs, don't know if this matters)

Yes, that is duplicate content.

Okay, thnx...But can you tell me what you do about it? Or how you work with subdomains. I mean normally spoken you can 301 a duplicated page to another. But, since the /sub folder files are the ones shown on sub.domain.com, I cant redirect? Im little confused here now..

Use a robots.txt file to exclude search engine spiders from the subdirectories.

Save a plain text file as "robots.txt" and write:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /subfolder1/
Disallow: /subfolder2/
Disallow: /subfolder3/

Make sure that the internal links on your website don't point to any disallowed subdirectories.

oh, how could I forget the robots.txt, of couse... ty
(it was really to late yesterday....)

IMO the bigger question is will they now treat links from subdomains as internal links. While I seen nothin to suggest this it would have greater SEO implications, as getting more than two results per domain in any SERP is not necessary, in fact IMO it seems that the SEO of such a site might not be targeted closely enough.

I dont agree with that at all.

Much better to occupy two listings on a page over 1 and it certainly isn't an indication that your seo 'isnt targetted closely enough'. I have a number of 1&2 listings as well as 2&3's 3&4's etc it just means both of those pages are far more relevant for the term than the pages below them. more pages probably are more relevant but the only reason they dont display (as was mentioned above in the case of the new algo for sub domains) is that google limit pages from one domain to two pages.

I would assume that the two pages per domain would be the two highest ranking pages as it is now.

If you have a site about doughnuts and page one is #1 and page 2 is#2 then why do you feel you should have more pages that rank for the same term?

Certainly one of those pages is more relevant than the others so I would prefer to target other related terms on other pages chocolate dougnuts, cake doughnuts etc etc on the other pages and put different resources to work on those pages as opposed to the doughnut pages.

IMO you only need and want one page of the site to rank for one term.