new forum addition... subdomain vs subdir?

I'm about to purchase vbseo... and my forum is still young by my site is a bit older... pr3 8 months old... so quick question is it better for me to use a sub dir so that my site would www.site.com/forum or forum.site.com... from a seo standpoint what would be better?

 

Of course to use a sub dir

 

Check other sites and conclude

like www.howardforums.com the mobile phone forums they have subdomain

Though you will gain more PR by placing a sub dir

The main difference is that by using a sub domain we can have separate SQL database for that forum

 

I usually vote for the sub-directory. Your links to the main domain will help your forum and your forums will do the same for the main domain.

Yes you will still get some benefit from a sub-domain but it is debated how much.

 

I'd go for forum.site.com.
And you can see that DP address is forums.domain.com

 

You should be able to run multiple separate databases without requiring a sub-domain for each.

 

yeah no issue there... I didn't think this would be such a split issue... I tend to think that a subdir would do better since it seems hard to get inbound links for forums and I could share the inbound links from my main site...

 

I think subdir would be fine from the SEO standpoint as subdomains are treated as separate domains by the search engines and links to the main domain won't benefit the subdomain.

 

Based on a recent exchange I had with Adam Lasnik of Goolge, this might not be entirely true. I though the same thing until this exchange:

I responded asking for clarification because I too thought that subdomains were treated as entirely different sites.

Adam responded by saying this:

 

great insight thanks

 

Good insight, tflight.

Thanks for posting that exchange.

Eric

 

Positive that's still the case and if so, does anyone know to what degree each engine considers subdomains separate sites?