About.com-like model for my country.

Subfolder or subdomain for best ranking on Google?

[lakr]

Dear all,

I intend to set up an about.com-like website to cover all topics in my country. My question here is:

Should I use subdomain like about.com for each topic or subfolder instead?

Please help.

Lkr

[tedster]

If your website stands a chance of growing into the PageRank and backlink strength that About.com enjoys, then I'd say go with subdomains. Otherwise, I'd personally probably use directories.

However, previous discussions here on the topic often show a mixed opinion and mixed experiences. Quite a few people who have tried both approaches report that it doesn't seem to make much difference in SEO, so the main tradeoffs would be server maintentance, especially when moving (it's easier with directories), and the shorter URLs that subdomains create.

Subdomain spam was a big algo loophole in the past that Google seems to have closed, at least to a degree. I do have some concern about tripping some of that algo logic when launching a new site that makes extensive use of subdomains.