Is there a difference between sub domains and top domain in rankings? Would it be better for me to buy a top domain than register a sub domain at awardspace for rankings?
subdomains are complely new domains for the search engines because it will be difficult to rank a subdomain
You'll want yourdomain.com instead of a subdomain if at all possible. And it has nothing to do with search engine rankings (aside from the time it takes for them to realize that you've moved). Subdomains are nice to have for multiple sections of your site that are not directly related to each other (which is why the search engines treat them separately). For example, Yahoo has news.yahoo.com weather.yahoo.com sports.yahoo.com and so on. It's better for Yahoo in this case to have those major sections of its site separated by subdomains rather than directories so that they don't clutter the main site in the search engines' search results pages. Also don't forget the golden rule of SEO (and Web design in general) - Put Your Human Visitors First.