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You might have come across the term “subdomains” as regards your web hosting accounts, and wondered just what they are good for, and what the difference is between them and a simple directory. There is a large difference, and you should know what it is. Let’s take a peek at the uses of subdomains and when you should employ them.
A subdomain is a separate entity residing on your main site’s URL. It would look like this: powerfulrockets.rockets.com. If you were to use a directory structure it would be nearly inverse to this: rockets.com/powerfulrockets/
The first example would be in essence a separate site that presumably has content relating to powerful rockets, but has nothing to do with the web site, rockets.com, other than by virtue of sharing an IP address and web space, bandwidth, etc.
The second example would indicate a specific folder on your main site which has content pertaining to powerful rockets. It is presumed to be a folder/related page to the main site. It also obviously shares web space and everything else.
Each subdomain is considered a separate web site by the search engines, despite their proximity to the main URL. Each will be indexed and have their own separate ranking. This can be good or bad for the webmaster. If you want to separate and promote a particular topic on its own domain, a subdomain is useful for that purpose. If you were to have a very general domain, for instance, like cars.com, it might be a good idea to use subdomains if you wanted a page on auto insurance in Nevada. It could make it a lot easier to rank your pages.
Make sure to use unique content on your pages, and not simply copy over the same content in hopes of getting more search engine love for having lots of it. You will eventually be found out and kicked out. Not worth it.
Also include unique title, keyword and description tags with each page on your subdomains. It would be useful to also have a separate robots.txt file on each subdomain as well.
One of the best things about using subdomains is that you can target specific keywords that you might not have been able to do in your main URL. This can help with your rankings. Be aware however, that targeting that perfect five word keyword phrase appended on the front of your main URL can make for a pretty unwieldy and hard to remember site. Arthritisinyourdogshindquarters.everythingaboutdogs.com could be problematic for anyone actually trying to get there or remember it. (You’d need two lines on a business card!)
While it’s nice to save a few bucks, since the subdomain resides on your main hosting account, and doesn’t cost you any more money, there are other considerations. Makes sure you think things through before deciding whether or not to use subdomains or directory folders.
