What is better for web ranking? A domain or subdomain?

[RG_SEO]

I realise that often it is better put content in a subfolder rather than a subdomain, but I have another question that I cannot seem to find the answer to.

Is there any ranking benefit to having a site on a .co.uk or .com domain rather than on a subdomain? I'm guessing that the subdomain might benefit from other content on the domain it's hosted on, but are subdomains weighted down in any way in the search results?

[donford]

Glad I could help

Best wishes,

Don

[RG_SEO]

Thanks for the clarification Don - much appreciated

[donford]

I think the answer is basically the same.

The answer is they will be treated differently. You won't see a direct benefit from latching on to the main domain.

In some cases it does make sense to use sub-domains for example, forums.domain.com. This gives the user both keywords forums & domain name (an indirect benefit). It makes it easier to manage content in a CMS by having the forums on a sub-domain. Heck Google does this for many of its products as does Amazon. In most cases these are services offered by the main domain. For example: Google->Ad-Words, Google->Translate, Amazon->Seller Centeral etc..

However if they are completely different items or services I would just use a different domain completely. I would point to my work for an example. I work for a custom rubber manufacturer who's primary focus is working on new product development and manufacturing for OEM's . But some of the products on our website were generating a lot of interest and phone calls from smaller opportunities. Instead of ignoring this option and potential revenue we built a distribution site (On a different domain) to handle these smaller opportunities. Had we done this on a sub-domain we could have confused larger OEM clients by thinking we are a retailer or middle man, when in fact we are a manufacturer.

I hope that clears things up, really evaluate the reason for the sub-domain if it is a sub-product / service by the main domain and there is no clear conflict for making it a sub-domain then okay, otherwise and in most cases it will likely make more sense to use a different domain completely.

This is my thoughts I hope it helps,

Don

[RG_SEO]

Thanks for your response Donford and for the link.

The question I am asking is slightly different (I think!). If you were setting up a completely new website, would that website rank better on it's own separate domain.

For example, if I setup a website called www.widgets.com would Google prefer that to widgets.maindomain.co.uk? Or is there no difference at all?

I guess what I'm trying to find out is whether there is any difference at all between setting up a new website on a subdomain or domain, or whether Google treats these as the same.

[donford]

Hello,

A subdomain is treated as its own domain and will rank separately from the main domain. There are a couple of reason I can think of to use a sub-domain but by in large it is more productive to use the main domain.

Matt Cutts (Google) talked about this several years ago here is a link for you: https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/

The notable thing in Matt Cutts blog post is how they treat domains and sub-domains separately. This is actually important for sites that host others content. Think blog domains for example.