Domain or Sub Domain - Which is better and why

[Sujit Rocking]

Hi,

My company has a domain with .com and we have offices in Phillipines and Dubai. So we want to change the domain to target this areas/regions as well.

What i have thought of is to buy domain with respective regions for better focus. Still my management is worried as its too costly to buy UAE and Phillipines domain altogether.

So this are the ways I have put details.
1. www.example.com/ae and www.example.com/ph - Is it fine to use such sub-domain . Need to understand.

2. www.example.ae and www.example.ph - If its the best.

Please guys tell me the benefits among above two ways of domain distribution.

Thanks

[RedBar]

It never, ever ceases to amaze me how companies can justify global offices yet consider $100 for a specific domain name as too costly,
unfreakingbelievable.

Use #1 or.ae.example.com and .ph.example.com if the company is that tight or #2 if the company really wants to enforce its local presence.

[phranque]

www.example.com/ae and www.example.com/ph - Is it fine to use such sub-domain . Need to understand.

if you use subdirectories instead of hostnames to separate regional content, you will not be able to host the regional content locally.

www.example.ae and www.example.ph - If its the best.

this is one option for using hostnames.
another option as RedBar mentioned is subdomains.
the advantage to using ccTLDs is that they are inherently geotargeted by google.