New Domain Name or Subdomain?

Which to use?

[jretzer]

I've got several ideas for sites that I'd like to pursue, but am debating whether I need to get a domain name for each of them, or whether I could put each one in a subdomain of another site. The main issue here, I guess, is maximizing my search engine exposure.

I have a short nonsense word domain -- lets call it "example" -- that I could put the new sites under, so they would be

bowling.example.com
rockmusic.example.com

The advantage I see here is that I can use words in my subdomain that are taken in in dot coms, nets, etc.

But I'm wondering if this would end up in my being depreciated by the search engines.

The alternative is to get some awkward domain name for each new topic, such as your-examplesite.tld or some other such nonsense ...

Advice, please?

[edited by: Webwork at 3:44 pm (utc) on Oct. 14, 2005]
[edit reason] Example.com is the Domain Forum's domain of choice per Charter [/edit]

[Webwork]

My view is go with the new domains and new websites.

A single site, if it's dependent upon SEs for love and survival, is a sorry thing waiting to happen.

If your success is based upon PPC and you don't much care about SE love then subdomains are fine. Just keep in mind that they all can get nuked in the SERPs come the day that the SE algo tweakers decide that subdomains are an exploit.

Anybody see subdomains used in an effort to exploit SEs?