Are there any advantages to having sub domains?

[domoftheuk]

Hi WebmasterWorld.com Friends,

Are there any advantages to having sub domains?

blog.example.com - sub domain
example.com/blog/ - non sub domain

[domoftheuk]

I found one advantage which I think is correct:

Sections in a folder structure are seen by search engines as part of
one site, meaning the folders will not be indexed

But sub domains are seen as different sites so they are indexed

[lammert]

Pages in folders Are indexed by search engines, as long as there are incomming links from the home page or pages outside of the site. In fact my pages with the highest Google pagerank are two folders deep in my site structure.

One advantage of subdomains is, that you can split your traffic to different computers (now or later) without problems. www.example.com might point to a virtual web server at your hosting company, where blog.example.com or ftp.example.com can point to your personal computer or local network attached to the internet with for example a DSL connection.

[domoftheuk]

WOW, that is a big advantage off having sub domains

Thanks lammert for your reply

[siteseo]

The DISadvantage of using subdomains is the loss of PR and site depth. If you add a new subdomain, it's like creating an entirely new website from scratch.

Conversely, adding a new directory to an existing site adds content depth and has the potential to rank well for competitive terms right away (particularly in Google, if organic is part of your biz model).

[cyberair]

But lets say that you had widgets.com

If people are searching for "car widgets" Then I suppose that car.widgets.com with page title Car Widgets, would have a stronger value, than widgets.com/car

[grandpa]

The biggest problem I've had with a subdomain is getting people to understand the url. It's been ingrained to so many people that web addresses start with www.

Just try navigating to http://www.blog.example.com

[jefuchs]

As a relative newbie, I have found this advantage: Many PHP programs install in the root directory only. So without subdomains, all the program files would be cluttered together, which could cause a conflict if any use the same filename.

With subdomains, you can install your blog software in blog.mybigwebsite.com, while you can't install on mybigwebsite.com/blog, even if it's the same location.

[andye]

The DISadvantage of using subdomains is the loss of PR

afaik PR applies individually to each page, rather than to entire sites as defined by their hostname.

Best wishes, a.