Subdomain vs. Subfolder - SEO difference?

[John @ S4]

What are the differences between the way that search engines index and link together content in subdomains and subfolders?

For example, if a site is being built with a forum or blog in addition to the main content, is there an advantage or disadvantage to using forum.example.com and blog.example.com from an SEO point of view.

I have read that Google claims to treat subfolders and subdomains as equal, and then conversely read that search engines treat subdomains as completely separate entities and subfolders as part of the same site.

Any thoughts?

 

[bigredseo]

Subdomains are treated as different websites. So any marketing done on "website1.domain.com" would not necessarily influence the marketing and rankings on website2.domain.com

In most situations, we advise our clients to use folders, so all marketing efforts boost the overall ranking of the main domain name - however it will also depend on the amount of resources needed on a site and either that folder can be pushed to a different server for processing etc.

But, direct from Google, they are very different in terms of rankings!

 

[tolltd]

Google treats subdomain as a different site what bigredseo mentioned. But for subfolder they are considered as same website page. As example i can say hostingdiscussion.com this is a domain where https://hostingdiscussion.com/threads can be considerd same domain page for google. Here your subfolder name can be threads. Subdomain and Subfolders are treated differently.

"For example, if a site is being built with a forum or blog in addition to the main content, is there an advantage or disadvantage to using forum.example.com and blog.example.com from an SEO point of view."
For ranking they will be treated differently, But by interal linking you can pass juice.