Google Page Ranking

Hi all,

I currently building a site (e.g. www.whatever.com) which brings together a number of different interest areas (lets call them motoring, gardening and swimming, for the sake of argument).

I know how to do pyramid and lateral bidding on keywords, how to generate sitemaps and how to register my site on google with the verification code, etc.

I would like to maximise my Google rankings for all three interest areas, and so my question hinges on the way the site is organised.

Should I:

a) have frontpage at www.whatever.com which contains links to www.whatever.com/motoring, /gardening and /swimming sub-directories and which also contains 3 sections bidding on the keywords for each sub-directory and containing the links to the sub-directories.

OR

b) Same as option (a) but with links to sub-domains rather than subdirectories? (i.e. motoring.whatever.com, gardening.whatever.com and swimming.whatever.com).

Can anyone tell me which is likely to achieve the best page ranking in Google?

Also, will it be beneficial or detrimental to my ranking if I have sub-directories of www.whatever.com which are also mapped as subdomains? (e.g. so that motoring.whatever.com actually points to www.whatever.com/motoring).

TIA,

Mike.

You're better off building sub directories, purely because these are more likely to be viewed as seperate sites, and therefore the topic of each one won't 'water down' the topic of the others, if you follow me.

As for this -

so that motoring.whatever.com actually points to www.whatever.com/motoring

Isn't that the way sub domains work anyway? It's the way mine work... you upload to www.whatever.com/motoring, but it's viewed online at motoring.whatever.com.

Unless you mean the content would be viewable online at both URLs? That would be a bad idea.

Hi pennimus, that answers my question perfectly, thanks!

subdomains in essence ARE subdirectories, only you can access them differently (a.dot.com, or dot.com/a)

hi croatiankid, thanks for that, I didn't explain myself properly! Pennimus cleared up the ranking question for me. (i.e. having the same content viewable at both URLs incurring ranking penalties).