Will my sub-domains pass any SEO credit to my top-level domain?

[dbuckles]

a

[dbuckles]

I have the ability to place our own applications for our agency in unique folders but the links I will be distributing to other agencies are specific to each agency. They are links that are auto-generated by our web application that has the agency's identifying information embedded in it so that the agency gets their proper commission.

This conversation has been good though because I was going to build a bond application library into the site with a link to each specific application. I will now restructure the site so that the link provided will lead to a well named sub-folder that has the actual application framed into the page. I should probably also make sure that I don't just frame in an external application ONLY. I should probably place content on each page alongside the application that is relevant to the type of bond they are applying for. Would everyone agree?

[AlanBleiweiss]

I agree with EGOL - you'll get much more long term value going with subfolders instead of subdomains.

While there is some minimal pass-through value with subdomains, they're otherwise essentially unique sites, which means you'd need to apply exponential effort to have each one build it's own authority.

With subfolders and getting links into each subfolder, you get the maximum value for each link into that folder and directly as a result, to the whole domain.

Also, the additional content depth on the main site gives further boosts - every additional folder's content weight carries to the entire site.

[dbuckles]

Does this help clarify? I hope I'm being clear.

[EGOL]

Just a few comments/questions...

Your example links hit 404 pages...

Instead of using subdomains I would have the links hitting pages that are in folders on my main domain.  I believe that links hitting a subdomain will pass minimal credit to the main domain.  (Within the past year I redirected a couple of subdomains to folders on the same site.  The results have been kickass.)

Are these partner links followed or nofollowed?  If followed does that make you a little nervous - for either yourself or the people who you are asking to link to you?

Last... is this going to put a lot of duplicate content on your site?