Is an Info Directory best on a Sub-Domain or Sub-directory

[ToledoRoofing]

This post is deleted!

[DarinPirkey]

I pretty much always prefer a sub-directory to a sub-domain as the search engines will tend to look at the sub domain as an entirely different domain.  Both can rank and both can do well and honestly Google won't care.  I personally like sub-directories for it's ease.

Here are some pros and cons to each

Pros for sub domain: It can keep the traffic separate.  This can help you determine a few things, if you get a lot of traffic to an info section, you can create a longer more authority version of that content on the blog or however you have it setup on the root domain and generally it won't be competing with each other as far as Google showing one or the other. If it doesn't get a lot of traffic, it will help keep that portion of the site separated from your main site and keep your index bloat rate down. (index bloat is the ratio between the number of pages you have indexed and the number of those pages that actually get traffic).  If all the content on that sub-domain is the same it can help users stay in that "world" vs seeing other things that are distracting. (explained a little more in cons of sub-directory section)

Cons for sub domain: If you do get some good traffic and especially links to those pages, it would be better if those were in a sub-directory as all the pages benefit vs just the domain metrics.  This can be a minor issue but I have seen from my experience that building links to a sub-domain haven't helped me as much as building to a sub-directory. You'll also need to setup separate tracking in both search console and analytics for each of the sub-domains whereas the sub-directory doesn't need any additional configuration.

Pros of a sub-directory: If you are getting traffic it can really boost your overall site and other pages on that site.  Easy tracking and goal setup in analytics and you can setup a sitemap_index that has that section of the site as it's own sitemap so Google can crawl it as needed.  This helps with crawlability and data usage when Googlebot crawls.

Cons of a sub-directory: Can get confusing to find particular articles as it's in a sub-directory vs a sub-domain where if someone is looking for a particular type of content, it's all organized.  As an example think about Overstock.com.  When you go to overstock.com's homepage you shop there.  But if you need help you can go to help.overstock.com and that entire sub-domain is only built for people looking for help.  If people are done and need to go to the main site, they can click on the logo up top.  with sub-directory sites, you'll tend to have the same sidebars and other information on the page that could distract someone from actually finding the help they need, which could lead to a bad user experience.  On the Overstock site, after a while, you'll see a wheel pop up where you can spin to save some money. Of course that could be blocked on certain pages but any distraction can be a bad thing.  You get the idea.

What I'll say is this, it doesn't really matter.  I tend to recommend that you pick a version and stick with it. Don't second guess it.  You won't be wrong either way, just know that you'll need to set up tracking accordingly.  Think about the users and how they might want to interact.  Both are fine for SEO, just think about your users, how helpful it is.  I personally prefer sub-directories but there are cases where a sub-domain is better.

Best of luck.

[salem4e]

sub-directory get benefits from Domain Authority and Trust while sub domain doesn't

[jasongmcmahon]

Don't use the sub-domain unless you have to which is generally when you want to run debit services under one domain such as  a shop alongside your main website - or - you offer 2 completely different offerings under one domain selling cars & boats etc