From a cosmetic viewpoint are subdomains better?

My site has several "sections" eg forums, directory, reviews
Do you think that having forums.mydomain are better than mydomain/forums or can that just lead to more problems?

my GBP0.02: subdomains make sense when the various sections are quite big and almost "autonomous" in terms of navigation, look and feel (even though they keep a consistent theme and identity with the other parts of the site). however, it can cause a bit of extra work referencing common images, stylesheets etc absolutely from the main www site (to take advantage of caching across the various subdomains).
if, however, your sections are quite smallish and keep the same navigation etc, it makes far more sense to keep them in subdirectories.
my view on it, anyway...

I think the point of a subdomain is to make it easier for visitors to get where they want without going through the front page.

Instead of typing

.com/forums/generalchat/news.php

they can type

news.yoursite.com

If your visitors are typing in the domain name, going to the index page, then clicking the forums button straight away, A subdomain may be the way to go so visitors don't need to click there way through.

For example SP setup a separate domain for the forums so us who visit the forums so often can go straight there instead of having to click our way through.

Cosmetic wise I don't think it matters, just use them for usability. So visitors can access the main parts of the site easier.

By the way, I've got a nice hosting Net.ru (it's pitty there's no English version)!!! When I create subdirectory, it automaticaly becomes subdomain! So one can type "http://www.my-site/dir" or "http://dir.my-site.com"

In general I am not a big advocate of subdomains and I think having subdirectories works just as well.
But if you plan on a given site being very hosting intensive it might be helpful to have games.yourdomain.com and chat.yourdomain.com starting out.
That way when those sectiosn get big they can be hosted on their own machine or with a different host with far better ease.

When subdomains are logical, I see no reason why not to have them. One of the reasons I got my own domain, was that I then could subdomain it.

There's definitley something very attractive about the word 'subdomains'. I recently upped my hostig account and now have unlimited subdomains ::: does some grinning :::. Whether its because the word simply sounds good or whether subdomains just look good in print, I really don't know.

I have numerous sections to site, as I'm sure most people do, but I have only used two subdoamins. The first pdf.mydomain.co.uk is purely for navigational reasons, I offer a number of my articles in PDF format, the subdomain makes getting at those files much easier, in my opinion. The other is reports.mydomain.co.uk This part of the site uses a completeley different layout and is an opensource project i'm working on.

Essentially what i'm getting at is, although subdomain looks pretty, they serve a purpose. To make navigtaion of a site more efficient. If your site abuses these purposes then the power of the subdomain is relenquished (wow that was a big word lol).

I agree with redux that subdomains should be more or less used for bigger sections and that subdirectories be used for smaller content areas.

Although, you have to be careful when using both a subdomain and a subdirectory with the same mirrored content.

I would choose one or the other. Search engines tend to frown on repeating pages and the debate is still out on whether or not subdomains are better than subdirectories.

I do know that whichever you use you should keep the names as relevent as possible to the search term someone might use to find that section. Hope that helps.

I use a subdomain right now for learning Moveable Type for a blog and it works out very well. The subdomain set up very easily--installing and running MT was a bit more complicated. As an aside, I have really become involved reading blogs of late and find them absolutely fascinating. Does anyone else feel this way? I have had 2 visitors to date and have no idea how they found the blog unless they followed a link from my primary site.
http://thehazefilter.freddeaton.com I still have a lot to learn about the ins and outs of web based input, but I have been spending an inordinate amount of time on this in the past 2/3 weeks, so I will eventually figure out everything I need to know. (I keep thinking of edits to this post) I also find blogs to be a great venue for learning CSS and they have helped me tremendously. The next time I redo my primary site I will make much more use of CSS2 and xml.

Subdomains will look better rather then long links or even shorter ones. They will also be easier to remember for your visitors. You can also assign them to a directory of your web if you have problems with them.

I seem to remember that last year or the one before that, every company under the sun seemed to be coming out with sub-domains for different purposes, but now, I don't see so many advertised. Nothin' scientific, but that may be antidotal testimony to a limited use of sub-domains, or antidotal testimony of a greater reliance on public broadcasting. ;-)

Personally, I think sub-domains are mostly useful for print advertising, or at least circumstances where you're going to "brand" it (or other people will be branding it like mass hosting), and only then for important things. There's not much advantage over a traditional directory structure, otherwise. I defiantly would allow for people who may get mixed up and type the sub-domain as a directory, though (just redirect 'em to the right place). Oh, and sub-domains on sub-domains aren't cool.

As for blogs, I dig 'em; load up blo.gs almost every time I log on. I'm thinking of starting my own in fact, but not sure yet. I know people are just salivating at the chance to read through my rantings on a regular basis, though. ;-)

~~Ian

Of course, going for "sub-domains on sub-domains" gets you worst and it is true, they aren't cool.

Now.. having subdomains will not make your site a top of the list, it just seems easier to remember or to remember a subdomain rather than slashing ( / ) around a long directory structure (I am not talking about regular visitors fors the website that are familliar with the name of the site and will remember the location easily, but about first time visitors).

However, it seems more convenient to have both subdomains and directories pointing to the same web location, for example:

support.yourstie.com
and
yoursite.com/support
pointing to the same support webpage