Best Way To Breakdown Big Site

... subdomains or new domains?

[austtr]

Not sure if this is the best forum but none of the others seem to fit...

A site has been online since 97... its a big country destination guide and its optimised for the country name. Its a grandfather site with just about everyone and ranks well across a very wide platform.

I want to have more avenues to the data than just from the country level and the idea is to break it into smaller optimised parts, basically one for each state. I'm undecided on the best way to tackle that.

I will be keeping the existing domain but do we:

1) build a set of "state name" folders directly under the root of the existing domain: eg..
www.existdomain.com/statename/index.htm and optimise those pages for that state

or

2) get a new domain for each state and treat it as a separtate site. eg...www.statename.com/index.htm with a reciprocal link to the parent site.

Any pros and cons come to mind?

[Mike_Mackin]

With only 6 states why not do both with differing content.

[austtr]

Goog thinking MM.... I was focusing on "either/or" and forgot the "as well as" option.

I knew I hung around here for a reason.