Which is better? "forums.domain.com" OR "domain.com/forums" ?

If I was to add forums to my websites, which would be the best path?
forums.domain.com
or
domain.com/forums
Also, should I use forum or plural, forums.
I've seen that most of the forums I visit (including dp) using plural and the first path. Is there any advantage to this?
Thanks

 

I am also having the same confusion..
But I suppose forums.domain.com is the best - Coz the leading SEO forum DP is using it

 

ha, yea I'll probably just go with that, thanks

 

You should always go with subfolders since subdomains may be treated as separate domains.

 

That would depend on your goals for the web site and the forum. As stated forums.domain.name is considered a separate web site from domain.name.

If the forum does not directly promote your main domain content then in my opinion forums.domain.name would be the way to go.

Look at forums.digitalpoint.com and digitalpoint.com to see what I mean by this.

Gene

 

as for me , I would vote for domain.com/forums

 

I will suggest the sub domain (forums.domain.com )

 

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/two-clarifications-on-how-search-engines-interpret-links

People who suggest using subdomains is the way to go might want to read that.

 

Icheb is right. Rand just posted a follow up to that article: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-rising-tide-lifts-all-ships

 

I would go for domain.com/forums simply because it is more intuitive and will remind people of there is more to your site than the forums.
It is easier to go from domain.com/forums to domain.com, than go from forums.domain.com to domain.com, if you know what I mean

 

My vote is for domain.com/forums

 

subdomain is better, you can promote it using directories and it is easier to memorize.

 

Very helpful information. On the sites I've worked on, I've always used domain.com/forums, but wasn't really sure if there was a better way. Looks like I lucked into the preferred approach, at least according to the information in the links cited above.

 

It seems that the community's opinion is roughly evenly split.
I'm currently using domain.com for the forum since my site is only a forum, but I may change it later to domain.com/forums

 

Read this thread on Subdomain vs. Subfolder: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=259066

 

I just wanted to comment here. I recently took a semi successful site www.goodsite.com and forums.goodsite.com (not real URLs). I was thinking about making the change to www.goodsite.com/forums

I can only tell you this. It is the ONLY change I made, according to the backlink checker here at DP my pages in URL for good site dropped to 6 from 425 and my traffic to both the site and forum dropped like crazy.

just saying this is what i saw

 

domain.com/forums
it gives the idea that the forum is part of the site and not its own thing

 

I say domain.com/forums because I'm use to it.

 

Do both. Why limit yourself. Use some rewriting and it should be fairly easy to do both.

 

forums.domain.com

looks how this forum does it! works well for me!