Should subdomains be avoided for brand new websites?

[JonDavies54]

When creating a brand new website, will setting it up as a subdomain provide ranking benefits? I understand that if it's an existing domain, it's better to use a subfolder because a subdomain is treated as a different domain. But is there any reason not to start a website with the keyword in the subdomain?

For example:

keyword.domain.com

The SERP's are dominated by websites which contain some variation of the head term, but the disadvantage of doing a similar this is your website looks very similar.

Thanks!

[DougRoberts]

To add to the other responses, I can see reason why you might want to not use your keyword in a sub domain.  If you do, it means that everytime you give you web address out to someone you have to use it!

Depending on your keyword, this could be a nightmare! I'm not sure it'll do your "brand" many benefits either.

What happens if you go down this route and decide to change your target keyword, or your keyword is no longer relevant to you business (things change!). Do you build a new site hosted on the subdomain for each keyword? (Things could become silly if you take this too far!)

A simple "www" or nothing has become an easy to remember convention.

[Vahe.Arabian]

Google is starting to see subdomains as internal pages to the root domain. Hence the value of subdomains have greatly diminished. More info here - http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2011/08/reorganizing-internal-vs-external.html

So if you are looking to target multiple keywords, it would be best to create a sound site structure that includes optimised content and URLs for your targeted keywords.When developing your internal linking structure, make sure these pages also link to both the home page and category page.

[CaseyKluver]

Hi Jon,

If you are just trying to create a page on your website about "keyword" there is no reason you should be using a subdomain. Every piece of content on your site should be on the root domain.

You will get no ranking benefits from a subdomain over a subfolder. That being said if you create the best content out there you can rank anything, but this will set you back.