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Because my current site is on a CMS system it is best for me to set up the forum, shop and job board on a sub-domain like so: forum.mydomain.com, shop.mydomain.com and job.mydomain.com. I dont want the CMS to be confused with other forum or shopping cart software running in the same directory as this may cause confusion or conflicting between software which is why I am thinking of using sub-domains.
What is the practice in doing so for SEO? Is this a good idea? If people used google to search my site for content would content that is appearing in my forum at forum.mydomain.com not be included in those searches as google will see the forum as a separate site? How would I tell google that the sub-domain site are actually part of the main website?
Hope you can provide some valuable information on this.
If I were doing this, I would use the sub-domains you suggest (as it makes logical sense to divide the different areas) - but relate the sites naturaly through menus and links to the appropriate areas. The search engines will pick up the fact the various sites are related.
However, someone may have done what you want exactly and advise you - but I've never really thought of doing it. I use sub-domains for different but related content to a main site (such as a forum), but for consistent content flow within a main site a sub-directory structure.
Yeah I normally just use sub-directory but I am using different software for each section of the site like forum software, shopping cart software CMS so its best to split them in case they conflict in some way.
