Run in a subdomain or folder

[martinglover]

I'm developing a forum currently and am trying to decide whether to make the forum a subdomain of my site or have it as a folder within the site ie forum.myexampledomain.com or myexampledomain.com/forum

As I'll be using the forum to hold ads as a source of revenue for the site, I need to make sure I get the best practise method to get the full SEO potential and want to make sure it go the right path initially. Does anyone have experience of this.

Also, promoting a forum/getting initial posts and members on there- what is the best method to acheive this. I don't want it to look like a ghost town when it's first launched.! Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[webcreationuk]

I think paid posters for start is a good thing to do while visitors are very hard to get when beginning a forum.

[temi]

It really depends on your strategy, you can use subDomain.Domain.com like this forum uses or you can put it in a sub folder, I persoanlly favour the sub domain option as it give you more flexibility

[Cyber Master]

Some folks say that subdomains are better for SERPs positioning but I don't know how it really is.