I have participated in the discussion on which way to link to a forum and what is better some say http://forums.mychemistrytutor.com and some say http://mychemistrytutor.com/forums cpanel actually sets up subdomains as both....so how does Search Engines know which one we intend?
well in the domain ftp hierarchy all subdomains are really just directories. but they appear as subdomains to the nameservers and im guessing google as well.
Subdomains are treated as a separate domain by search engine. Both format have its own advantages and disadvantages.