Subdomain Structure vs Top Level Domain Site; An Actual Case

[VernonWanner]

A major non-profit with 360 locations just completed a new program.  The non-profit has updated its site at URL www.mysite.com.  Each of the 360 locations has a subdomain site with URL   http://mylocation.mysite.com which reflects the branding of www.mysite.com and has a Drupal content management system.  The company is asking each location to transition the top level domain of each location ( example www.mysite.com to http://mylocation.mysite.com).

The subdomain location sites are tied to a CRM system, which initially hasn't worked.  But the long term objective is to gather CRM data via the subdomain location sites.

The main site has an Alexa Global Rank of 30,400 and a US Rank of 7900.  The main site has 2600 backlinks, and is a pretty powerful site.  Some individual locations in large metropolitan areas have decent backlinks, but most don't.  The PR of most local sites is 3 to 6.

The SEO experts at www.mysite.com have maintained that the power and authority of the main site www.mysite.com would propel the local rank of each location to a position of high visibility.

Using Market Samuari and Majestic SEO, a test on each of the 360 location subdomains was performed.  It was determined that Page Rank did pass from the main site to the local site in 15% of the cases.  However, 85% of the subdomain sites had 0 Page Rank.  Page Rank did vary from 2 to 5 on the 15% that passed rank, but there was no cross checking to see if the subdomain location had the same page rank as the locations top level domain.

Referring Domains Domain (RDD) was usually -1; Referring Domains Page (RDP) was usually 0; Page Backlinks (BLP) was usually 0; Back Links to Domain (BLD) was usually 0; Google Cache age was all over the map from unknown to 58 days.

Questions:

1. Anyone suspect why some sites pass Page Rank and others don't;

2. Should we continue on the path towards using the subdomain sites, or should each location keep its top level site and work on improving their local search visibility there?

3. There is no way to check Google Analytics (GA)  on the subdomain sites without having to access GA on the main site www.mysite.com.  Right?

4. Will Google Places and Bing Local honor the subdomain URLs for their respective Local Search pages.

5. Would there be a compelling reason or reasons to abandon the subdomain sites?

Thanks much for your comments!!

[mlagasse]

Also I would check the sitemap to ensure nothing is limiting specific sites from being indexed.

[mlagasse]

I have some experience with network installation and management using Wordpress CMS. All data from the subdomains is visible to the top level domain. Each site should maintain their own SEO properties, and this can be enhanced by using domain masking applications. Making the subdomain.mysite.com appear as myrealsitename.com

I would say that a properly run network will reduce maintenance overall, eliminate human errors from exploring users, and allow easy network wide installations, manual program inclusion, and platform updates.

But a simple answer, a top-level domain will always be a better bet that a subdomain. A network is best for the network top-level, reduces their work load, gives total control, and fairly simple to setup up. Networks to benefit from the intercommunication capabilities that outside sites would not be able to achieve.