Subdomain vs subdirectory for store

[BobGW]

Hello,

The following services site

nlpca.com

has a store at

shop.nlpca.com

Would the store be stronger if it was at

nlpca.com/store

(in a subfolder) and included in the main navigation? The moz bar suggests not but I just want to make sure.

Thanks.

[customerparadigm.com]

Bob-

I've answered a similar question in the past here: http://moz.com/community/q/blog-on-subdomain

But the gist of it is:

store.mydomain.com --> content on the store. is treated as a different site, and SEO efforts (content, inbound links, social media) only help the subdomain.

mydomain.com/store --> subdirectories are usually the way to go.  All of the content, inbound links and social media shares will help build the overall domain authority for you.

My recommendation is to go with the sub directory (mydomain.com/store/, and there are a whole lot of articles that back this up:

http://moz.com/community/q/blog-on-subdomain-vs-subdirectory-best-practices

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/subdomains-and-subdirectories/

http://moz.com/community/q/best-place-for-a-blog-blog-mydomain-com-or-mydomain-com-blog

Hope this helps...
-- Jeff

[BobGW]

Jeff, have you seen this:

http://youtu.be/_MswMYk05tk

is he just trying to keep it simple and subdirectories are actually better?

[customerparadigm.com]

Yes, this is a great video by Matt Cutts.  But I think he's mostly addressing how Google perceived people were trying to abuse their system, and what changes they made as a result.

Basically, he's saying that a subdomain doesn't make a big difference to Google's search rankings, and that in the past, people would use subdomains so that they could get additional search ranking placements (one for the main domain, another for a subdomain).  He's made it clear that Google has put an end to this practice.

What he doesn't discuss is whether putting content on a subdomain is going to affect how Google scores the site, and if it scores a subdomain separately.

Most of the research out there still shows that the domain ranking is set differently for a subdomain vs. a subdirectory.  Perhaps this might change in the future, but the general school of thought is that if you put all of your inbound links, social media shares, and content development into one domain (www.domain.com), it will do better than splitting the effort (part goes to shop.domain.com and part goes to www.domain.com).

Thanks!!