SEO for company blog - subdomain + SSL or subdirectory without SSL

Question

I got an SEO question related to an issue we are having with how we set up our WordPress blog. It revolves around the benefits/penalties of

1. Sub-directory vs sub-domain
2. SSL vs No SSL.

Which of these options is preferable for hosting a blog for SEO purposes:

1. Have the blog with SSL on blog.company.com
2. Have the blog with no SSL on company.com/blog

We have to pick one of these options since with our current configuration we have the blog deployed on a separate AWS machine so company.com/blog actually leads to a WordPress machine through a proxy we've set up. Because of that it proves to be difficult to add SSL to company.com/blog and so if we want SSL we can only have it added on blog.company.com

Essentially the question is - when it comes to SEO benefits, what wins over? Having the content on a sub-directory or having it under an SSL layer?

Answer 1

1. sub-directory is better as sub-domain (if the topical alignment is the same)
2. if you sell something or collect user info - make use of SSL, in case of no-usage you gets minus point. In other cases you don't need SSL - there is nothing to protect and no bounties fom using it.