hierarchy question - area and site differences

From: Ryan Gates (Gates_at_discussions.microsoft.com)
Date: 06/16/04 

Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 13:43:01 -0700

I have a functional question about desinging a SharePoint Portal. I am developing the layout of a Portal site for the Infrastructure team of our IT organization. I started by using WSS and then moved to SPS2003 because of the ability to search through the entire hierarchy (this is very important to us). Now the question I have is as follows:

What is the difference between an area under a portal and a site? When I create a subarea, it looks more like the portal template, but still has all of the web parts of the WSS site. If I create a site, it gives me the look and feel of purely a WSS site. So both being equal in functionality, what is the difference? What would be a good way to structure the site? I have 8 individual teams that reside under the Infrastructure Team, making it a pretty flat heirarchy (only 2 levels, the Infrastructure team and then each of the 8 functional teams). Do I create areas under each or sites? I need to be able to categorize documents so that they are kept organized, and I MUST be able to search through the entire Portal! Thanks in advance for any help!!