Subdomain vs totally new domain

[eSpatial]

Problem:

Our organization publish maps for public viewing using google maps. We are currently getting limited value from these links. We need to separate our public and private maps for infrastructure purposes, and are weighing up the strengths and weaknesses of separating by domain or sub domain with regards SEO and infrastructure.

Current situation:

maps.mycompany.com currently has a page authority of 30 and mycompany.com has a domain authority of 39. We are currently only getting links from 8 maps which are shared via social media whereas most people embed our maps on their website using an iframe which I believe doesn't do us any favour with SEO. We currently have approx 3K public maps.

Question:

What SEO impact can you see if we move our public maps from the subdomain maps.mycompany.com to mycompanypublicmaps.com?

Thanks in advance for your help and happy to give more info if you need it!

[ChrisAshton]

Since subdomains are treated as a completely separate domain, your options here are essentially to go with an aged domain with backlinks vs a fresh domain that will be "sandboxed" for a little while.

Before someone yells at me for it, no, the Google Sandbox no longer exists but you will still see fresh domains rank nowhere for several months in most scenarios.

With that out of the way, as long as moving those maps to the subdomain doesn't provide a poor UX then this is going to be your best option. Retain the strength you've already built and keep going from there rather than starting fresh. Just be weary of the potential for existing users who may have saved favorites or emailed links to the primary domain; you don't want them landing on a functional page that looks nothing like what they were expecting!