Which is better: subdomain or dir?

[Jonathan]

Let's say that I want to get a high ranking for the term 'potato boxing'. Which of these two would likely be better?

potatoboxing.whatever.com or whatever.com/potatoboxing/

Not sure if I should bother with subdomains if it could potentially help even the smallest bit. Opinions are appreciated.

[Giembo]

what about

potatoboxing.whatever.com/potatoboxing/

[krooga]

I would also be interested in hearing opinions on this...
I would beleive however that the /dir option would be the most suitable. Subdomains are considered I beleive as being seperate from the original site hence using a subdomain will not get the advantage of the main site PR !

If anyone could fill us in on this that would be awesome,

Sam

[GFX^^]

obviously subdomain

[Jonathan]

obviously subdomain

Why obviously?

[ForumDomains]

Subdomain is the answer because google treats subdomains as another name space, so you can be more flexible with inbound and outbound linking to or from your main site.

[Vorty]

google treats subdomains as another name space

They have to...

[VisualDigits]

I'm curious about this too. Any SEO experts care to share?

[denny007]

what about
potatoboxing-potatoboxing.whatever.com/potatoboxing-potatoboxing/

[Jonathan]

Interesting idea.

[Castlemelody]

Hi!

It really depends on your main site. If your main site domain is related to potatoes or the like, I'd say I will go with the subdirectory thing.

Example: cars.com/autoparts/ is better than autoparts.cars.com

Some search engines go for theme-based site.

Subdomains are advantageous if you want to keep track of stats, etc. since they are treated separately.

Good luck!

[MrDude]

Also it should be something like /potato-boxing/ or /potato_boxing/ for search engines to be able to split up the words, I also think a directory would be better as promoting it would help the main domain and promoting the main domain would help the subdir.