UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums UBB.threads 7 Version 7 Support what is the difference?

When I view a thread on my forum it looks like this:

http://lymecommunity.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/72/page/1#Post72

But when I email THE SAME THREAD, the link looks like this:

http://lymecommunity.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showthreaded&Number=72

What is the difference between these two URLs? Is there anything functionally different about them that I need to understand?

The first link is more search engine friendly and it essentially replaces the ? and = and & 's with / slashes. Google and other engines then rank this page higher as it appears to be a static file instead of a script generated file.

I'm not an expert on the subject so thats all I'll say, but you can read up here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization