Is it better to have separate country specific domains (which costs more money) or sub domains which define the country, for better SEO?e.g.example.comexample.com.auexample.co.ukvsexample.comau.example.comuk.example.comAssumption: The search engine web master tools, each sub domain are associated to a country. Example au.example.com is associated to the country Australia.Update #1I understand that both methods do work, especially when i utilize the assumption, listed above. The question is about: Which method is better? Is there such a small SEO difference between them? Is the first method way way way better than the second with getting better SEO results?Update #2A number of folks have suggested that the following is a good/better approach:example.com/example.com/auexample.com/ukBy adding a country specific ISO  code to the end of the url/the first  folder of the domain can be recognised  as the country.But a number of SEO mates have suggested that this is a valuable waste of folder level space. Er.. how can I explain. OK, it's been suggested by some SEO experts that if the number of levels or folders in the domain exceeds 5 then the page drops dramatically in importance. Basically, you don't want to make it deep. As such, adding the country as the first level can be considered a waste, especially when it can be handled by the domain OR sub domain - hence the question :)
SEO International Websites usage of sub domains and ccTLD domains
seo;domains;subdomain;top level domains;internationalization