Using sub domains or not

Using sub domains or not, Sub domains in websites

[cyberpunkstudio]

Hi, I have a website that runs on its own CMS. I am looking to expand my website with the addition of having a forum, a small online shop and a Job Board for people to post jobs on.

Because my current site is on a CMS system it is best for me to set up the forum, shop and job board on a sub-domain like so: forum.mydomain.com, shop.mydomain.com and job.mydomain.com. I dont want the CMS to be confused with other forum or shopping cart software running in the same directory as this may cause confusion or conflicting between software which is why I am thinking of using sub-domains.

What is the practice in doing so for SEO? Is this a good idea? If people used google to search my site for content would content that is appearing in my forum at forum.mydomain.com not be included in those searches as google will see the forum as a separate site? How would I tell google that the sub-domain site are actually part of the main website?

Hope you can provide some valuable information on this.

[makemetop]

There is nothing inherently wrong in using sub-domains in a situation like this, though sub-domains are considered as separate (but related) domains. If you want a search engine like Google, however, to consider your subdomains as part of your main site content, this is (without some backend farily intricate coding) difficult to make happen (though I have never tried it). In my experience, they will be considered different websites - related to the core website, but not part of.

If I were doing this, I would use the sub-domains you suggest (as it makes logical sense to divide the different areas) - but relate the sites naturaly through menus and links to the appropriate areas. The search engines will pick up the fact the various sites are related.

However, someone may have done what you want exactly and advise you - but I've never really thought of doing it. I use sub-domains for different but related content to a main site (such as a forum), but for consistent content flow within a main site a sub-directory structure.

[cyberpunkstudio]

Thanks makemetop for the helpful information.

Yeah I normally just use sub-directory but I am using different software for each section of the site like forum software, shopping cart software CMS so its best to split them in case they conflict in some way.