Do I need to use sub-domains for each city?

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

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  Michael Martinez: Neither type of URL has an SEO advantage. The subdomains create a bit more work for you. It`s usually better to use a subdomain to distinguish that part of your site from the main host.
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  Adrien Robert: Yeah a client of mine is spreading his activity in new cities, and he wants people to book for the virtual room stuff for each city.
  At the moment the site is on WordPress, and subdomain per cities seems a lot of work (as he asks me if I can do that because people told him that it will be better for SEO, hence my question on this)
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  Michael Martinez: Adrien Robert Well, WordPress natively supports subdomain networks - 1 installation, multiple subdomains. But if you`re using HTTPS then you need to create the subdomains anyway and point them to the WordPress installation folder so you can get free SSL certificates. Otherwise you have to pay for a wildcard SSL certificate.
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  Adrien Robert: Michael Martinez Yeah forget about the "how-to" then, it`s not my main concern. But it was if it has any SEO benefits to split city as subdomain
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  Michael Martinez: Adrien Robert Honestly, I would probably start with the pages option first before setting up subdomains. You can include them all in a single automatically generated XML sitemap. But either way you need to be careful about navigation. You don`t want to load a lot of city-specific URLs into the sitewide navigation and you don`t want to use `nofollow" attributes when pointing to them. I see siteowners doing both all the time and then complaining they cannot get any traction. And what about the content per page? How unique and distinctive will it be? Different business addresses and phone numbers or all the same? And are the pages supporting GMB listings or not? Like Richard said it`s not an easy question to answer based on what you`ve shared so far.
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  Adrien Robert: Michael Martinez I should have specify more, I didn`t think it would an impact, my bad.
  
  The service from my client is in France only.
  At the moment he will launch his service in new cities, in France only.
  
  So all the website is in 1 language, and all the content is the same expect the new page per cities to present the new cities where the service is available, and the booking system that is split for each cities.
  
  For the main site, there is the social siege address and main phone (where that ask you to press 1, 2, etc... dependent on the city where you want to land), and on the city page the different information will be the location of the service in this city
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  Richard Hearne: I would not take any advice based on this question in isolation. You need to take a holistic view to the site and business goals before deciding which might be optimal.
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  Adrien Robert: I don`t take any decision yet, I`m just seeking for advice, I detailed a bit more in the comment above
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  Richard Hearne: There is nothing there that I would ever offer advice on. If your business depends on SEO to any extent then asking for free advice like this is a recipe for disaster imo.
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  Adrien Robert: Richard Hearne Thanks for the warning, I appreciate
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  George G.: Unless there’s a compelling reason to separate business units, the subfolder approach is far less work.
  
  Because it is less work, you’re more likely to maintain it, which will likely translate into better rankings.
  
  A good example to use subdomains would be if you have an umbrella company doing business in different niches.
  
  However, in your case, and most cases, subfolders are the better approach.
  
  Also keep in mind subdomains are treated as separate domains.
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  Adrien Robert: You reply is awesome too, very clear and precise. I want to thank you as the other for the time you took to reply to my post George G.
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  Dan Thies: Kind of a unique case because prostitution is hyper-local, and the site has been seized by the FBI, but backpage.com did some testing that was pretty conclusive in favor of city name subdomains getting a higher click through rate from SERPs.
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  Adrien Robert: What are you talking about? I think you posted on the wrong thread...
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  Dan Thies: “I have a question and I need your help.
  
  For SEO purposes, is it better to have (example urls):
  
  VRroom(dot)fr/paris
  
  Or the city as a subdomain, like:
  
  paris.VRroom(dot)fr”
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  Adrien Robert: Dan Thies Why are you mentioning "prostitution"? And a site that has been seized by the FBI?
  
  I mean you totally lost me ahah. I just asked a SEO question, not related to prostitution at all
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  Dan Thies: Neither will help you rank better.
  
  In the one case where I have seen enough data to reach a conclusion, the second option got more clicks from SERPs.
  
  Still think we’re in the wrong thread?
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  Adrien Robert: Oh thanks for this reply which make more sense. You lost me with the prostitution & FBI thing with your first reply ahah.
  Thanks for your time and help :)