Does the word 'forum' in the URL penalize the ranking?

[caliber]

Guys,

Thanks for a great forum. I have a question about subdomains, subdirectories, and URLs from google's perspective when the word forum is the first subdirectory. I have read that google is not crazy about forum content in general.

Let's say I run a forum about Apple's iphones. And let's assume that the following URLs are all for the same discussion thread about "Touch Screen Sensitivity".

Everything else being equal, from an seo perspective which is the best URL and why?

 
1. www.iphonetalk.com/forum/screen/touch-screen-sensivity-586372.html
2. forum.iphonetalk.com/screen/touch-screen-sensivity-586372.html
3. apple.iphonetalk.com/forum/screen/touch-screen-sensivity-586372.html
4. apple.iphonetalk.com/screen/touch-screen-sensivity-586372.html

I would speculate that #4 is best, #1 is worst, and I do not know about #2 and #3. What do you think? Does it matter?

Many thanks in advance for your help!

[briansol]

it really depends what ELSE is in your site.

IF you have nothing more than a forum, there's ZERO need to have either a subdirectory nor a subdomain.
Look what google does themselves.

google.com
mail.google.com
google.com/adsense
google.com/webmasters
labs.google.com

the .com holds the main product, the search engine
their product gmail has nothing to do with a search engine.
their labs isn't SE related either... it's all other tools and misc stuff
adsense and webmasters portals both relate to the SE, and thus are sub directories.


go with this model.

[caliber]

it really depends what ELSE is in your site.

IF you have nothing more than a forum, there's ZERO need to have either a subdirectory nor a subdomain.
Look what google does themselves.

google.com
mail.google.com
google.com/adsense
google.com/webmasters
labs.google.com

the .com holds the main product, the search engine
their product gmail has nothing to do with a search engine.
their labs isn't SE related either... it's all other tools and misc stuff
adsense and webmasters portals both relate to the SE, and thus are sub directories.


go with this model.

Thanks briansol,

Great answer - and that would definitely be ideal. Unfortunately, there is a large existing forum on a large site that has lots of different kinds of content (already deeply indexed) under different subdirectories.

Please assume now that the existing forum is:
www.iphonetalk.com/forum

Thanks again in advance.

[briansol]

my answer doesn't change

if it's not in the ideal spot, it should be moved. With custom 301's, you can easily move stuff around with vbseo and not lose the incoming links/SE pages

[caliber]

my answer doesn't change

if it's not in the ideal spot, it should be moved. With custom 301's, you can easily move stuff around with vbseo and not lose the incoming links/SE pages

So, this would be your choice of URL:

apple.iphonetalk.com/screen/touch-screen-sensivity-586372.html

Where the subdomain "apple" replaces the directory "forum"

[briansol]

Again, it depends.

What ELSE is on iphonetalk.com?

If 'apple' is your main product, it should be your main .com, no sub domain, no directory.