Subdomain vs. new domain

[sefmal]

Hi all,

I have a project where a business is expanding its reach to a new market segment.
For this I am building a new website and then optimizing it.

The business currently has a website that's been up there for quite a while and has a PR of 3. The idea is to have a banner saying "wholesale solutions? click here" and it will go to the new website.

My question is:
From an SEO perspective does it make sense to build this new website on a new domain or to create a subdomain withing the current site and then have the new registered domain point to that subdomain?

Thank you

[PhilipSEO]

My question is:
From an SEO perspective does it make sense to build this new website on a new domain or to create a subdomain withing the current site and then have the new registered domain point to that subdomain?

Good question, and I am sorry no one replied sooner. But I think it depends on what you are trying to achieve. Eg you give no reason why this has to be a separate site. Why was that decision made, why not a new section (subfolder) of the same domain? Are you going for the same keywords as the rest of the business or a different set of keywords? Will the new site represent the same brand or have a different brading? All these are important considerations.

By the way, some valuable info about how subdomains are currently treated by google can be found in this important video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MswMYk05tk

[manishchauhan]

In my opinion, having a local TLD is still the number one way of showing Google that a website is intended for a specific geographical target. However, you can still do the same with subdomains as well, you only need to do is, host these on different servers to the main www site and set the geographic target as per your target market in GWT. Then Google will pick up on the fact that this subdomain is made keeping a specific market in mind and would render your subdomain accordingly for the local searches of that market.