Directory or subdomain for online store?

We have a domain and now we need to setup an online store. Which is better for search engines开发者_开发知识库 and for people (easy to remember, etc.) - a directory (site.com/shop/) or a subdomain (shop.site.com)?

Subdomain is the best option. Easy to remember, well organised (regarding file structure), and has no disadvantages regarding SEO (many multinational companies use it)

In my opinion a sub-domain is better to remember, but normally to this cases we use a directory.

You could use both, and just redirect to one of them. Like, if you go for shop.site.com put a redirect from site.com/shop/.

Personally i prefer to use a subdomain because it "feels" cleaner and easier to remember, but i am not sure what search engines think is the best (if they actually think one is better than another)!

I would like to share what i know, Subdomain is not same as domain.

When coming to its Page rank & page authority - I suggest having main domain is best/

Have you heard about page rank, its the rank given to that particular page. I generally feel when its sub domain its improvement in page rank would be very less when compared to domain.

Eg - When its www.example.com/product1

The page rank of the main domain would pass from www.example.com to www.example.com/product1 soon.

But when its product1.example.com

Page rank would take time to get passed from main domain www.example.com to product1.example.com

Check out the live example -

http://demo.uniecommerce.com/ (Page Rank - 0)

http://www.uniecommerce.com/demo.html (Page rank - 3)

Infact demo.uniecommerce.com was the one created first & the other one was created later.

I personally like paths much better. Also, I'm quite sure that normal people have become used to the "www.something.tld" pattern - it is the usual way of communicating a web address in everyday life. I would bet that the majority of people would not know what a subdomain is, or how to type it into a browser. The organizing argument doesn't count in my opinion, as any kind of file structure can be achieved with directories and subdomains alike (at least in Apache).

store.site.com is a MUCH better solution.

Generally regular users don't CARE about your URL, they just type in "site" into Google.

Then they click.

As long as your store has a prominent place on your site, it won't be a problem.

Apple does this very well:

http://store.apple.com

A subdomain also keeps your "sales" apart from your "content" which different avenues in most businesses.

I think it's also a matter of server. In some cases like blogs, a server has to save many dns and make heavier process for server, also if we want to change the server, how could we bring huge size of subdomains to other servers?

one of the problem is need of wildcard SSL certificate if you need to make your complete website secure, wildcard SSL is costlier than other certificates. what ever sub-domain will be easier to remember but it have some minor disadvantage in SEO, Search Engines consider sub-domain as a separate domain.