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What is the difference between a sub-domain and a sub-directory? In the electronic eyes of GoogleBot, not much though one is easier for the bot to deal with and the other is (in certain circumstances), easier for a webmaster to deal with.
A sub-domain prefixes the domain-name at the host level as such: ppcassurance.metamend.com/. A sub-directory is a set of files that are seen as a suffix to the domain-name such as, metamend.com/blog/.
Up until a couple of months ago, a general piece of SEO advice was to separate distinct topics addressed under the same URL to sub-domains. This was done to help search-spiders differentiate between topics and also so search-spiders would treat the information at a sub-domain as they might a unique website. Using sub-domains, SEOs could conceivably capture a far larger number of Top10 placements under the same keyword phrases for different parts of the same company. In that way, SEOs could offer five or six (or more) of ten first page placements as opposed to the more frequent two front page placements under the same phrase.