Domain keyword weight

best domain structure for SEs

[cyberair]

I have a domain that is exactly the widget name. Example widgets.tld

For SEO purposes, what would bring in more keyword weight, supposing that people were looking for the phrase "argentina widgets":

1. Sub domains
argentina.widgets.tld

2. folder
widgets.tld/argentina/

It would seem that option 1 is the logical option to take, because it is in the same order as the search. However, would SE's think it is a site of its own and ignore the widgets.tld? Thus giving it only weight on "argentina", instead of in "argentina widgets".

[otc_cmnn]

It will give weight to argentina AND widgets.

It will treat it as a seperate site from www.widgets

In my experience this gets more weight than www.widgets.com/argentina/
I theorize that this is because G prefers pages higher in a directory structure, the root being best.

[tedster]

It will treat it as a seperate site from www.widgets

Very true, and quite nice if there are enough other "signals of quality" that warrant it being considered as a stand-alone site. A separate DMOZ listing would go miles in that direction. Or a Yahoo Regional listing. Independent IBLs - significant content, all that kind of thing. But a one page subdomain wouldn't get much clout, even with a keyword.

[cyberair]

You bring a good point. Therefore, a website who plans to create a full site off of keyword.widgets.tld, has much more possibilities than if developed under widgets.tld/keyword/

[gpmgroup]

You need to be careful using subdomins some search engines treat them all as one site if you link between them.

[cyberair]

What would be the harm in an SE treating all subdomains as one site?

You get the multiple Dmoz listing, more PR, more links, and then that popularity is distributed through all sub domains.

The site will have subdomains, because as in example argentina.widgets.tld, these subdomains will be country specific. However, they will all be about widgets and will share general information from widgets.tld through cross linking.

[otc_cmnn]

If you want to know if and how this works, just look at what eBay has done:

First they hire some of the tops SEO guys out there - this is what the generated (One of many things)

[buy.ebay.com...]
[buy.ebay.com...]
[buy.ebay.com...]
etc etc etc
They get really high rankings for many of these combos

I hope eBay is generic enough not to get moderated out -- sorry if it does...

FULL DICLOSURE: I do not own any stock in eBay... But wish I had bought 3 years ago...