Subdomains and seo

I have a site with a forum. I was thinking of adding a subdomain for the forum. The forum would be able to be accessed by both methods:

domain.com/forum
forum.domain.com

Is there going to be any seo or duplicate content issues if I do this?

 

I believe that you are better off using domain.com/forum since the other is technically a new domain.

 

I'd suggest you avoid doing that. The duplicate content issue can be eliminated using Url Canonicalization.
However, i'm unsure if backlinks to the sub-domain will be counted for the original forum link. If you happen to get organic/natural links from people who like your forum or something about, they would not know whether to link to the sub-domain or the 'folder'(/forum/) version.
Unless you're going to do a 301 redirect from one URL to the other, i'd still highly suggest you avoid this.

 

Sub domains are treated like new sites, you'd be better off using /forum/

 

my thinkingis also same, it is better to have domain.com/forum, than having other sub-domain ....

 

I agree. ..

 

As jdr8271 said,

I also advice you to create a sub domain, as the folder method is pretty old.

SE will treat your Sub - Domain as a new site.

Get all benefit of sub-domain

 

No, only keep one URL. It will be treated as duplicate content.
Choose the /forum URL.

 

Diffenately dublicate content issue will come, or else the post will not get any boost. Better you can keep any one URL.

thanks,

 

Sub domains are treated as new domains by Google. And if think from SEO point of view then, /forum can get the advantage of old domain and existing back links of the main domain. But if you choose a sub domain, then you will not get these advantages.

 

If you have just forums related site then out of those domain.com/forum would be better.

 

Subdomain if you want the forum to be treated as its own "site." Folder if you want it to be treated as a part of your existing site.

I love subdomains, though. They're a great way to target long tail keywords.

 

Agree with all buddies supporting domain.com/forum. Becoz sub domain will be treated as different domain while folder will be counted as a part of main site and ranking of forum pages can also benefits main domain so domain.com/forum is good.

@"Revis"
How can you say that sub domain is great way for targeting long tail keywords??? Long tail keywords can be targeted using domain.com/forum also right???

 

The duplicate content issue will surely be there ... so just one way to access it is better.

Think ... Will adding as a subdomain assist in getting more backlinks from another domain (that is how the SE's will treat a subdomain) ??