According to rails convention,

PUT is used for updating an existing resource

POST is used for creating a new resource

In rails 4, PUT has been changed to PATCH to avoid confusion.

     posts GET    /posts(.:format)                            {:action=>"index", :controller=>"posts"}
          POST   /posts(.:format)                            {:action=>"create", :controller=>"posts"}
 new_post GET    /posts/new(.:format)                        {:action=>"new", :controller=>"posts"}
edit_post GET    /posts/:id/edit(.:format)                   {:action=>"edit", :controller=>"posts"}
     post GET    /posts/:id(.:format)                        {:action=>"show", :controller=>"posts"}
          PUT    /posts/:id(.:format)                        {:action=>"update", :controller=>"posts"}
          DELETE /posts/:id(.:format)                        {:action=>"destroy", :controller=>"posts"}

延伸閱讀:ihower - HTTP Verbs: 談 POST, PUT 和 PATCH 的應用