Which is better..using subdomains or having a stand alone domain

[MattScalcione]

Hello,

This is also my first post! I'm new to SEO and have been researching it for a few months now and was curious on how important you guys thought the keyword enriched domain names are at affecting positive SEO.

Example:

You are located in Seattle and are a Ford dealer and you own the following domain names: www.seattleford.com, www.seattleforddealers.com, www.seattlefordparts.com, www.seattlefordservice.com, www.seattleautobodyshops.com

Do these keywords in your domain name have a minor or major implication on your search rank? Assuming they have the content on them which is relevant and have been optimized for SEO.

Optimizing your URL improves its presentation and helps the user understand what your page is all about in SERPs. If your website URL is inline with common searches then it makes sense that G would give extra ranking to sites whose URL match what users are looking for.

Do a search and look for bolded entries. Those are search matches.. they are good.

If you did own seattleford.com I think that is definitely a powerful URL for a Ford Dealer in Seattle. I would still have a domain with your dealerships brand represented though for those who just type in joeblowford.com - you can 301 redirect those to seattleford.com and not lose any seo juice.

 

[Hixie]

Optimizing your URL improves its presentation and helps the user understand what your page is all about in SERPs. If your website URL is inline with common searches then it makes sense that G would give extra ranking to sites whose URL match what users are looking for.

Do a search and look for bolded entries. Those are search matches.. they are good.

If you did own seattleford.com I think that is definitely a powerful URL for a Ford Dealer in Seattle. I would still have a domain with your dealerships brand represented though for those who just type in joeblowford.com - you can 301 redirect those to seattleford.com and not lose any seo juice.

Thanks for the response! After looking around on the internet for awhile this is what I figured. We are planning on using some optimized landing pages with those URLs while keeping our main website since it has a PR3 and we've had it since like 1998 so it has great history.

We should have this completed in a month or so I will try to post some info regarding our subdomains vs. the main page like traffic before and after.