Which url to use for forums?

forums.website.com

or

website.com/forums

I own an online magazine, and I'm looking to add forums. I understand that website.com/forums will look like the same domain to search engines, and will therefore carry Pagerank better... is that correct?

However, I don't want forum posts to suck Pagerank juice away from my articles either, so...

Are there any advantages/disadvantages for each url location?

Edit: After doing a Google search, it seems that most people are saying subdomains have the advantage, because if the forums are penalized for any reason, the main site won't be affected, and also, the forum posts won't dilute the pagerank juice of the articles.

The disadvantage of a subdomain is that, the forums won't benefit from links leading to the main site.

Anyone have anything to add here?

 

website.com/forums would be better,because most of the people use this.

 

I use domain.com/forums

 

Directory unless the subdomain is large enough to be on a seperate server.

 

I use forums. but I doubt either way is more benificial, just use whatever suits you best.

 

I don't think it will make any difference

 

I like how everyone says domain.com/forums is better, even though we're on forums.digitalpoint.com

 

I like subdomains because it looks cleaner
I build links to all parts of my site, so I'm not worried about "losing pr" to sub-domains

 

You're worried about losing juice from your article towards forums? Will your articles be linking to forums threads? If not, I don't see where this is too much of an issue.

Your determining factor here is the content of the forums...
Will categories/forums remain on topic for the domain? Example, if your domain/site is all about ipods... will the overwhelming majority of subjects of the forums be ipods and mp3 players, or music, movies, etc etc etc. Many forums frequently have general and generic areas: it's these that detract from your domains topic.


Google tends to like when your site remains on topic.
Google also sees sub1.example, sub2.example, sub3.example as 3 different sites. Example.com and example.com/forum/ are the same site... follow me?


So, answer is... depends on your content and intentions with those forums.

 

I think domain.com/forums will be better. The only reason I say this is because I had the hardest time trying to find digital point earlier today. I kept typing in digitalpoint.com/forums instead of forums.digitalpoint.com.

But I am just one person who thinks this, so others will probably disagree.

 

Using it as a folder compared to a subdomain saves you from searchengines ranking it as a new domain.

 

Use forums.domain.com or domain.com/forums.
Those two are the most common url for forums.

 

use subdomain with different cpanel / hosting

 

I actually use both with success.

domain.com/forums is handy to build a very strong site with all other type of services inside.
forums.domain.com is excellent to get high ranking on very specific keywords when combined with an even more meaningful domain.

However, using "forums.domain.com/forums" will look cumbersome.

 

use subdomains if you will need to seperate servers

 

Is there any conclude conclusion on the options?

domain.com/forum OR forum.domain.com

I would like to know the outcome...

 

Did you read the thread? Subdomain if the forums are on a different server.

 

forums.yourdoamin i think is better. may be you can see this forum, using forums.difitalpoint.com or maybe you can see google service for "public", like mail.google.com etc. after all, you take the lead

 

I use a sub domain, but that's mainly because my forums are hosted on a different sever to the main site.

However I also redirect domain.com/forums to forums.domain.com

Personally I really don't think it will make that much difference in the long run.

 

I wouldn't use the word "forum" in my URL at all. Doing so is a great way to have the discovery spiders of spammers add you to a list of forums to spam. The most basic of discovery spiders, meaning they're the ones anyone can figure out how to use, simply search the Internet for new domains and then they send a request to that domain with "forum" and "forums" tacked on to the end. Simply registering your domain will put it on numerous ISP "newly registered domain" lists that can be found by anyone.

In your case I would use a word like "discussion", "talkback", "gossip", etc.