Themes and dilution - when to create subdomains?

[santapaws]

i have a widget site. Everything under the topic of widgets is within the main domain. The site sells actual widgets but one of the most popular parts of the site is the pictures of the widgets (around 1/4 of all pages) which attracts a lot of inbounds. However 'pictures of widgets' is really a different topic to the actual selling of widgets (widget <b>type</b> searches). I am wondering if by placing the pictures section under a subdomain it would tighten the main widgets theme of the website. On the other hand a lot of inbounds would now be credited to the subdomain and not the main domain. So its a question of what would help the ranking of the main widgets section most, leaving the main topic theme diluted but the site with more inbounds, or removing the pictures to tighten the main theme but lose a lot of inbounds.

the way i see it right now is that google is not sure if my main theme is a type of widget or a pictures of widgets.

Quandary.

[tedster]

I would say create a subdomain when the content is both distinct and substantial, serving a differnt business purpose. From just your quick description, I would not think splitting off the images to a subdomain is a good idea.

Seems to me that images of widgets are to be expected on a widget site - no semantic confusion there. A bigger question might be why backlinks to your other content are so limited.

[santapaws]

no both sections have backlinks. Looking at sites above me they do not provide the extra information that i do and seem to prosper from having a tighter theme.
The pictures are not actually of the widgets, they are pictures of where you find these widgets.

[santapaws]

" I would say create a subdomain when the content is both distinct and substantial"

but what if you had to make that choice AFTER having both sets of content on the same domain with inbounds to the main domain?

[tedster]

The motto "Cool urls don't change" is some very smart advice. I would not lightly create a new url for those pages, not even via a new subdomain.

[santapaws]

tx. Thats why i had left them alone till now, and will continue to do so, but in my niche its not the sites with added information that are topping the serps.