Subdomains are extra websites that you operate, which are offshoots of your root domain. If you owned domain.com, you could create a subdomain named blog.domain.com. People use subdomains to separate parts of their website that are different than the main, or root, website. If you were to use a new domain name for a blog or online store, there wouldn't be any connection in your visitor's eyes and it would dilute your brand. Search engines recognize subdomains as unique websites. If you earn backlinks to your subdomain, these links will not have any direct search engine optimization benefit for your root domain. If your subdomain does well in the search engine results pages, you can encourage visitors to visit your primary website. The extra traffic is an indirect benefit. Subdomains give webmasters another opportunity to appear in the search results. It allows people searching for a specific feature in an organization like yours, such as a blog or shop, to click on the link and find exactly what they wanted. Another benefit of an extra presence in the search results is reputation management. Any company that has been in business for years will have at least one unhappy customer that they cannot please. Positive and neutral search results that appear on the first page of Google will help bury any complaints. Subdomains do have disadvantages. If you do not have many content ideas, creating additional content for your subdomain can become a challenge. Now you have two sites that need fresh content, instead of one. Some web design companies are still using a subdomain for the mobile version of a client's website, such as m.site.com and site.com. While starting with a responsive design is much easier, the web design company can charge the client for updating or maintaining two websites, not one. For more information click here https://www.reddit.com/r/SEO/comments/8kkwx8/dobacklinkstoasubdomaingivevaluetothe/.