Many Subdomains OK?

Which is better many paths or subdomains?

[Irie]

I am optimizing a site that has many "sub-sites". I know that search engines value subdomains more than paths. Thus, I was going to make all of the pages (thousands) subdomains rather than paths (/file). The thinking is that each of these pages will have a greater weight for their unique topics. Is this right, or would I be making a mistake. The top-level is not as much an issue as the "sub-sites".

[mona]

I know that search engines value subdomains more than paths.

Really? Subdomains do have value, but I'm not sure they're valued higher than paths.

I was going to make all of the pages (thousands) subdomains

These pages are dynamic, then? Have you considered creating subdomains by topic/theme and grouping pages together?

[caveman]

If you make each page a subdomain, I'll take the bet that you're toast in short order. If the pages emerge at all.

This is something that the SE's became much more aware of from an SEO perspective, a couple of years ago. There was a time when it seemed that a majority of listings in competitive SERP's were subdomains. Now there seems to be a reasonable ratio of those pages appearing, i.e., more as it might be in the so-callled 'natural Web.'

My 2 cents anyway.

[Irie]

Therefore, is it better to make them paths. I can see that SE would penalize you for having an unusual distribution of subdomains, but does it look the same way at paths. I figure that it's not a good idea to have pages many levels down e.g. www.site.com/level1/level2/level3/file . Or does it not matter that the page is that far down in the IA? From what I understand, SEs value pages that are higher up in the IA (closer to top-level). Is this correct?

Finally, how are we to know what the statistical distribution of the natural web is? I mean, there does not seem to be a way to make the IA of my site exactly as the normal distribution for a typical site. Do SEs really penelize for this?

[caveman]

There was a thread on this somewhere a year or so ago about distribution of PR (?) by level from root, I think.

The general wisdom for a while seemed to be it was less a matter of folders away from the root than clicks away from the homepage. But I'm not sure I believe that. In any case, there seems to be little reason to go more then four levels down, and we mainly stay with three...beyond the homepage that is (four total). Often it depends upon the subject matter.

That said, here's some pretty sage advice on site architecure and theme pyramids [searchengineworld.com], here.

If anything, recently it seems that G in particular is worrying less about whether a page is linked form the homepage or not. Right now, they seem to like well optimized pages that are two clicks away from the homepage.

Whatever, it all goes back to make a structure the use can navigate easily and that makes sense logically to SE's and users alike.

Widgets.com/small-widgets/blue.htm makes sense to most everyone.

[Irie]

Makes sense. Thank you. I guess the best policy as usual is common sense and the middle ground. Push the content up to the top, but don't over-do it. I will try to keep this in mind.