Pros and cons of seperate sites vs. subdomains

[brantwadz]

First timer and new to SEO

We  are designing a website for a customer in south america that has 3 distinct divisions.  We want to develop the site in the most SEO effective way possible.

Each division will have its own keyword focus, its own associations and its own links. They will all link to each other from the main page company.com.

we were thinking of creating 4 different seperate domains such as...

www.company.com - basic high level company information with links to the other external sites below.

www.company-contructionsoftware.com

www.company-itservices.com

www.company-graphicdesign.com

so my questions are:

1- is it better in the long run to have domains that have the search terms in the url like specified above? We can optimize for the main site as well as the individual sites separately

2- would the result be the same using subdomains? for example, itservices.company.com

3- possibly hosting the 3 different sites in different locations?

We want to make sure that we are building using the the best possible architecture for future optimization and internet marketing.

What are the pros and cons?

Thanks!!!!

[EGOL]

I would make one site for a lot of reasons... just a few here... use your imagination to expand the list...

1. easier to cross sell

2. simplify design

3. simplify hosting

4. only one site to promote

5. power of all content is united

6. only one shopping cart

7. simplifies accounting

8. you can add more reasons..

(I know that this was not one of your choices... but I feel so strongly about consolidation that I had to toss this out)

[brantwadz]

these are all important issues to consider, but from an SEO perspective... are there reasons to put them all together?

¡Thanks!

[EGOL]

but from an SEO perspective... are there reasons to put them all together?

4. only one site to promote

5. power of all content is united

I would do it for those reasons ignoring the other six listed.

[brantwadz]

thanks!!!!

[RobMay]

Also consider that each sub-domain is considered by Google to be a separate domain.

So, actually building out sub-domains (like www.google.com and adwords.google.com for example) would be considered 2 separate sites wihtin the same company, and when starting to expand and build links too, those links to the sub-domain only stand for value to that actual domain - link value and 'juice' isn't passed through the whole domain to the rest of the site naturally.

It would be better to run with building sub-folders for the main domain like (google.com/adwords/ as an example) as the value of any links to /adwords/ sub-folder is passed all the way through the entire domain, even from a sub-folder.. as well as the other mentioned list above! It makes links building easier to manage without having to build links to all these individual channel sub-domains.

Hope this also helps you out!

Everything else also counts EGOL mentions above.

Cheers! Rob

[Mike.Bean]

Wouldn't having sub-domains make each sub-domain rank better in serps for each individual thing. In this case construction software, IT services, & graphic design?

Each sub-domain could be built better to have more relevance for each individual category instead of having to split the "google juice" into all three.

I'm sure there is a lot of content that each domain would still have, and since it would be staying on close to the same topic, it has an opportunity to make it further in the serps.

It would be better for starting to create a "SEO Empire" This is an article I think I found off this forum, or maybe an article on SEOmoz somewhere. Anyway you can skip to about the second half of this rather long article where it says "let's begin"

http://www.bluehatseo.com/seo-empire-part-1/