Site + Forum, same server, different IP / URL

[Frank_Rizzo]

I have a large content size site with a built in forum.

Google spiders the forum so that's giving me some good search engine saturation

I was wondering though. Is it a good move to use a different URL for the forum running on a different IP on the same server.

Currently: www.widgets.co.uk/widgetsforum/index.php IP:x.x.x.1 (the IP of the main site)

New setup:
www.widgetsforum.co.uk IP x.x.x.2

Is that a good idea? I think it is because the search engine would see all the links pointing to the main site as from a different IP address.

[Netizen]

Ask yourself which one works best for the users of your site and make the decision based on that. If Google hasn't changed how PR works then whether a page is on the same site or a different site makes no difference. They are all "votes" for the page they link to.