"Per-Erik Skramstad" wrote ...
> Should the domain strategy for a fairly large firm be to have all subpages
> under its main domain or let their subdivisions have their own domain?
> www.example.com/pepper
> www.example.com/salt
> or
> www.example.com
> www.example-pepper.com
> www.example-salt.com

I'd go for the first option, virtually every time.

*You reinforce your brand.
*You concentrate all your marketing on one domain, saving time, design,
effort and money
*All your links come to one domain, with measurable advantage in page rank
and ranking.
*You reduce the risk of duplicate page problems (but internal duplication
must be limited)
*You eliminate 'interlinking' penalties

The only 'normal' exception might be for different language sites, where the
benefits of merging are limited, and there real advantages in local hosting
and local.tld

Andrew
Editor
http://www.seo2seo.com/