Affiliate links: To subdomain a redirect or not?

[midwestmedia]

Hi everyone,

I am developing a new project that will have several affiliate links, primarily from Linkshare and CJ. I'm trying to decide the best way to create affiliate redirects.

I thought about doing this:
http://www.domain.com/affiliatelink

But this is also an option open to me thanks to my webhost:
http://affiliate.domain.com

Setting up a subdomain on my hosting account is a quick process, but so is creating a subdirectory on my main URL. I'm stumped as to which has the most benefits to me.

I like the clean look of a subdomain, but I want to make sure that I'm not creating a SEO problem for myself somewhere down the line. Managing the subdomains is also easy because they are all listed on a single page when I log into my hosting account and I can edit them quite easily.

Any advice?

Thanks!

Jen

[stephfoster]

[midwestmedia]

[Lynn Terry]

Even if they get indexed initially, redirects dont 'stick' in the SERPs... so it doesnt really matter either way. The minute Google figures out it is a simple redirect, they would drop it from their listings. And that's if they picked it up in the first place.

[smithkarl]