Have choose to place the forums at www.domain.com so that the first page a visitor gets is the forum, then set the menu at the top so they get to go to the different sections in my website

Might be for the best. I have a forum, directory, topsite and wiki all on sud-domains and have no idea what the hell to do with the root now

I think the latter (/forums) domain is a better choice. Although the first shows it's a forum straight away, for a few moments it looks to me as if it's a free sub-domain that many hosts now offer.

forums.domain.com always confuses me for some reason. It's only increased now that I hang out at Admin-type websites, when I find forums I like I usually register and post something, but come the next day, I'll have forgotten the url, so I try random ones that seem right (firefox gives you that dropdown listy thingy0. When it's domain.com/forum, I find it because forum is it at the end. However, the other way around I'll never find it in a billion years. I usually get frusterated, give up, and think the names I were trying were just way off, which has happened in the past.

I`m gonna be really aucward now ... I use domain.com/board

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i have mine has domain.com/forums i think it looks and is easier to use it that way.

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i think both

Here's my personal opinion. I understand that you are trying to attract members, but here's the thing. Would you like to see forums.domiain.com or domain.com/forums? I think what I'm trying to get at is, what do you think looks better? I personally think domain.com/forums looks better, and more professinal, but then again, the other one looks good to. So it's really just a matter of opinion.

domain.com/forums is my prefer structure. Even if i don't like, i can't change since Google index mine site, domain.com/forums but not domain.com...

www.jstump.com/forum should return a 302 to forum.jstump.com (my most recent attempt at a forum), but it's causing problems with a mod_rewrite rule that is currently in place for my new development (just typing in forum.jstump.com works). I'm in the process of completely revamping my site, which will contain a new forum I'm coding myself, into a friend-network site, and it remains to be decided whether I will use forum.jstump.com or www.jstump.com/forum for the new forum (or a system like the current one where one 302's to the other if I can get it not to interfere with mod_rewrite).

If you're torn between the two choices, or you need to make a decision now, just make one of then 302-redirect to the other one. My /forum/index.php is as follows (feel free to adapt and use it yourself):

With a little mod_rewrite magic, you might even be able to make it transparent, depending on your filesystem layout, and choose your preferred method using your forum options, with the result that whichever way your forum is accessed, the first link clicked in the forum will move them to the "official" URL.