Subdomain v. subdirectory v. other domain for blogs

[attorney]

I have a good amount of content on our main domain ( http://m00.biz/w4Ljfr ) let's say for discussion it's doctors.com and as you can see, much of it is in subdirectories. Traditionally this was the approach. Now I have some other content on subdomains but it's primarily directories and databases.

Now I see that Google is giving subdomains their own SER as if they are a separate site and competitors are locking in the top few results merely by having their content on subdomains. Now I have an opportunity of doing two things:

1. Current content: moving all the content of the past few years on their own subdomain (forum, blog), and I'll be moving forum software anyways. Not sure about our own guide, which has been up there for a while.

2. New content: putting up some new blogs/magazines such as "Doctor's Handbook." Let's say that is a common phrase. I can choose between the following:

• (a) www.doctors.com/handbook/
• (b) handbook.doctors.com/
• (c) www.doctorshandbook.com

I've got a bit of a quandary here, not sure of the best course of action and am curious to hear from many of you who have handled situations like this before.

[EGOL]

If your main site is already dominating the SERPs  for every keyword that your blog will cover it might make sense to put this content on a subdomain or a secondary site..

However, if your main site is not killing the SERPs and the content that you will be publishing is worthy of links, tweets, likes, and other forms of sharing then I would place it in a folder on the primary domain.  You want to focus this attention on the primary domain because this attention is what drives rankings.

[evolvingSEO]

Hi

I'd also look at this from the user's point of view. In my personal experience the first option (a subfolder) is the least confusing.

-Dan

[attorney]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts guys. EGOL - the branding aspect is a good point for the domain v. other domain issue. But I'm still troubled by the subdomain v. subdirectory setup.

Dan - The user experience of subdomain v. subdirectory is not relevant with a good dropdown menu. I don't know that they will type in "guide" to get there or "journal" either, except after becoming very familiar with the site. They'd know the subdomain anyways. The problem is I've moved to mixture of both. Google allegedly penalized us for having 'thin" content in a lawye r directory that was "thin" and supposedly more acceptable on the subdomain, which is a whole other site - at least to Google. To me, this is a paradox. The form over substance treatment is ridiculous and leads to ridiculous results (like one dominant site appearing 3-5 times at the top of page 1 as if each subdomain is a separate site.) Now I'm being told that Google is reacting to this but I'm still not sure what this means. Will I be creating problems by serving up my content on subdomains (which also saves three characters of www and creates shorter urls)?

Bottom line - if you guys were resetting up the site and given Panda's killing "thinner" content such as storefronts and directories:

(a) would you stick with all subdirectories (or all subdomains) or use a combo of the two?

(b) If you'd use only one, which one would you use? I've got the site URL up there but, in short, the primary content is on the subdirectories.

(c) If you continue the subdirectory setup, how do I avoid getting killed by Panda solely because some content isn't as "thick" as others inherently, e.g. a storefront with products? Google doesn't seem to care much about noindex tags on my site for "thin" content.

[EGOL]

I am not going to tell you what I "would do"... I am going to tell you what I "have done".

Within the past year I have redirected all subdomains into folders in the root directory of the main site.  Most thin content was thrown overboard, some thin content is being improved, the rest of the thin content is temporary and has been noindex, followed.