Sub-domains

How many pages for a sub-domain?

[dougmcc1]

I am building a website for a client which provides travel services in 3 different countries. I have read that using sub-domains is a good way to add a little more keyword relevency. So I would like to make sub-domains such as:
country1.companyname.com
country2.companyname.com
country3.companyname.com

The client wants the site optimized for those 3 countries which is why I want to put the keyword in sub-domains but I don't know if I have enough content to justify doing this. I have 3-4 pages for each country. Is that enough to separate them into sub-domains without being frowned upon by SE's? Is there a minimum value as to how many pages a sub-domain should have?

Also, are sub-domains given their own unique PR or is it dependent on the PR of the main domain?

[jdMorgan]

dougmcc1,

Welcome to WebmasterWorld [webmasterworld.com]!

Subdomains are primarily an "administrative thing" - used to help organize a site from a project or maintenance viewpoint. Take Google's different subdomains, for example. Since one-page sites are evidently OK in www subdomains, then having several subdomains with a few pages each should be fine, as long as the content and cross-linking serve the users, and not some artificial PR-boosting scheme. When search engines "frown upon" sites, it is usually because there are several "tricks" being used, evidencing an intentional attempt to skew search results - It's a "big picture" thing.

PR is always calculated on a per-page basis. When you see a reference to a site's PR, that is usually a loose reference to either the PR of the home page or to the PR of the highest-ranking page on the site, as a result of all of the incoming PR and the way it is allocated among the internal pages.

The critical message is that PR is per-page, not per-site.

HTH,
Jim

[dougmcc1]

Thank you for your timely response.

The site really doesn't need to be organized using sub-domains, I just thought it would help build keyword relevency for the keywords I am optimizing the site for. This might be considered a "trick" or "attempt to skew search results" so maybe I'll stay away from it.

Thanks again.

[paynt]

Welcome dougmcc1, thanks for your post. You may want to run a site search for 'canonicals'. You'll find a wealth of information related to the use of subdomains as a strategy for internal optimization. Before you make a decision, please do run a searh, on Google too and see if those ideas will help you in your decision making.