Best way to set up a support site - sub domain, separate site or com/support?

[googilvie]

My company is setting up our support site.  It has been suggested that we set it up as a separate domain - www.company-support.com, rather than setting it up as a sub-domain (www.support.company.com) or the usual www.company.com/support.  The person who proposed this believes it wlll create link juice, but i wonder if splitting the traffic will create more harm than good?  Opinions please!

[manchestermichael]

Hi googilvie

you sound sceptical about this persons' suggestion, and I would be too.

What is the purpose of the support site? That's perhaps a daft question but presumably it's primarily to support customers with the effects of lowering support costs, increasing renewals or repeat sales or whatever? Or is it to add content for SEO purposes.

Either way I wouldn't use a new domain.

For usability I would put the support section on the same domain (in a folder) or a sub-domain

For SEO I would put it on the same domain, both to earn any incoming links for your primary sales domain, and also to avoid a discrete 'support site' outranking the main one on any brand or product name searches.

I can't think of a single brand or company that uses a separate domain for support, which is often a good indicator of whether something is a good idea

Michael