Hey, isn't there anyone here who can answer this?

Obviously a subdomain will not have the same weight for google as a domain but I had no trouble ranking subdomains. Actually I have one that's a sales page and has maintained a PR 3 for most of the past year(and now). It will obviously depend on the same factors - content, onpage/offpage SEO - as a domain, but with added penalties.

So, no, Google does not dislike subdomains and yes you can rank with them.

A subdomain will do now worse than a domain name unrelated to the niche. A domain name with your keyword that you wish to target is best but a subdomain doesn't carry a penality.

Find a search phrase where there is not a lot of competition and you'll likely find a lot of subdomains on the front page like something.blogspot.com, something.hubpages.com.

It would be hard to test but it could be tested. Two sites with the same content. One with a subdomain and one with an unrelated keyword in the domain and see which one does better.

You may have more problems convincing viewers that you're an authority though if the domain is on an unrelated subdomain.

Thank you, Guys! Someone pointed out to me yesterday that if I use HostGator, basically all my domains are considered subdomains because they host your first domain and then all other "addon domains" are actually subdomains.

I'm not sure if that is true or not, but if it is, then the subdomains really aren't treated any differently as you say.

i think its the same as it looks on primary domains
just backlinks and traffic

Technically, www[.]example[.]com is a subdomain of http:// example[.]com. Sports[.]example[.]com is also a subdomain. For Google all three are separate domains. It doesn't hate subdomains.

As far as hosting multiple domains on Hostgator or other webhosts is concerned, the addons are subdomains. You can redirect subdomains to the main domain using HTACCESS or Cpanel.