Dear Harini,

When compare to sub-directory sub-domain is best.

It doesn't matter. Unless you have plans to move that portion of content to its own server in the future use a subdirectory.

Subdomains are treated as more independent I've noticed - search engines aren't as willing to switch between subdomains as they are subdirectories. Also, you can't use relative URLs with subdomains which is the biggest hinderance.

Hai,

Yes you are correct! They are independent and cannot be used with related URLs.

Can we use WWW version in sub domains? Is this needed? I think it is not needed for sub domains! Any ideas on this?

when using subdomain there is no need to prefix www, just type subdomain.domain.com that's all.

Generally all blogs as set as subdomain.

Hi Harry,

Yes, I agree.

But most of the people are searching with WWW. Can we have some ways to make a sub domain to appear with the prefix!

Please help me in this regard

Hi Guys,

Well in my experience they both have their own advantage and disadvantages.. ones advantage can be others disadvantage.

Some of the points that I feel about Subdomains and Directories are-

- Subdomains need more of attention and manpower then directories. SD can be more hectic then the Directories when it comes to maintainance or even launching a new section in your site.

- Subdomains are treated as different website by the SE's, so you can actually use it for different features of your company.. and promote them in their own way.

- Pagerank is very easily distributed among the sub directories where as it needs the same work as for your main domain for your SubDomains when you want PageRank on them.

- Directories submisssion beccomes easier with SubDomains as many web link directoreis accept SD's and not internal pages.. that eliminates subDirectories.

- If the domain is devalued by SE's there is very good chance that your subdomains may still servive the punishment.. but not the sub Directories.. they will suffer equally as your main domain did...

- Well in rankings I think both are equally responsible.. I mean both of them needs proper SEO work to be ranked well.

- Subdomains can be called as Subdirectories.. but it cannot be vise-versa.
Ex: http://subdomain.maindomain.com can be called as http://maindomain.com/subdomain/ but it cannot be reversed.
May also depends upon the host though.

Summary:
Subdomains and Subdirectories.. in my opinion are both the same.. but again it depends upon how you want to promote it.
Finally if you score them from 0 to 100. SubDomains scores 10 points more then Sub Directories..


Just a suggestion !

Well I know for me it is easier to update pages with different subdomains, that is how I have Macromedia Dreamweaver set up. I treat each sub dom as a separate site. It then has its own tree of subdirectories. And I then treat some of those subdirectories as separate Dreamweaver upload sites.

This may be true with Dreamweaver but is not true with the rest of the world. Subdomains are no easier to manage and technically are more difficult to manage because they have their own DNS records whereas subdirectories do not.