sub domain or sub folder

[designasp]

Hi everyone

The supposed Ukrainian trickster who was switched on about the loophole in Google's indexing got all his dodgy subdomains indexed recetnly while beefing up Google's index by millions.

All the tricks aside, my question is regarding a well intended client who, before SEO, went about making sub domains and sub folders without a forethought.

Every department had its own way and now the company website is full of various sub folders and sub domains.

They now want to restructure all the domains to make it easier to manage and put up a united front to the public, so to speak. They are aware of the possible traffic consequences if they go about changing URLs but they really want to get this organised.

My question is the classic one:
Sub-folders or Sub domains

www.domain.com/service1
or
service1.domain.com

The advantages of a sub folder as I understand are: link popularity and page rank flow to the sub folder. There is also saturation advantage for the main domain. Are there any advantagess?

For sub domains, the main advantage is that search engines consider them as a separate site. Therefore if the content was unqiue then it would be advantageous to use a sub domain.

For my client the content is unique for each service but the branding remains the same on all services.

Just thought I would confirm the latest on the sub folder and sub domain issue.

Thanks for your time

[dazzlindonna]

Despite the recent successes of subdomains, I'd still stick to subfolders in most cases, because it is simply easier to develop/get links for one site, than it is for umpteen sites (or subdomains).

[gabs]

subdomain look spamy imho..

The only time I clicked on a subdomain is if its a country or forum otherwise it always think it going to be a freebee site...

Just imho.. ;)

[rustybrick]

Spammy? How?

MFA --> http://cameras.about.com/ ;-)

[gabs]

MFA never ;)

:peep:

[SEOSecrets]

Good point about about (!) but it can also work really, really well. Say you make www.AwesomeBusinessDirectory.tld and want to target Sneetches. You can cater to Plain-Belly Sneetches and Star-bellied Sneetches with :

www.AwesomeBusinessDirectory.tld/StarbellySneetches/category1
www.AwesomeBusinessDirectory.tld/PlainbellySneetches/category1

or you could do

PlainBellySneetches.AwesomeBusinessDirectory.tld
StarBellySneetches.AwesomeBusinessDirectory.tld

See how the subdomain setup promotes the "membership"? It draws the visitors and backlinks... due to personalization issues.. they have pride as Sneetches, and desire exclusivity and entitlement as Star Belly Sneetches. And if StarBellySneetches and PlainBellySneetches don't get along too well, even better to separate them.

You get back links to each from their respective communities, so it is able to survive split (I think it even encourages more and better BLs).

Now subdomains are also subject to the whim of Google, and we know how well they handled redirects and "canonicalization".