Sub-domains as good as domain of their own?

**Grounded Vertigo** · 13-09-07

I posted a question the other day about the length of a domain I was considering buying and had some really useful feedback concerning how the way SEs see domains and content when assessing rankings.

Since then I've been doing some research on domains and have seen a lot of articles suggesting subdomains can be as powerful in the search engines as a seperate domain. I personally haven't ever tried this (well not until the site I launched today) and I wondered what people's experiences of using sub-domains had been?

**gadget** · 13-09-07

I don't know the answer but ..

A Google search for "shopping" returns shopping.msn.co.uk and shopping.yahoo.com as search resuults numbers 1 & 2.

shopping - Google Search

**globoChris** · 14-09-07

Rumour has it that sub-domains are treated as seperate sites to the main domain and so do have power.

Id question how long it's likely to stay like this though

**Brendon** · 14-09-07

Subdomains can do very well. The criteria for using them are

1) Does the root domain already have, or is about to acquire decent power?
2) Is there going to be enough content on the domain to justify it? If you could potentially split the subdomain off into a standalone site, then the answer is yes.

If you satisfy 1) and 2) then a subdomain can do well.

**Grounded Vertigo** · 19-09-07

It does sound like sub-domains can do the job then. I suppose another factor would be the length of the original domain. If it's too long then no one is going to want to type that in AND the subdomain.

I may give it a go with a new domain once it's built up some power of its own