Can forums bring down your search engine rankings?
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it might be my imagination, but i could swear that after the launch of a bbpress forum and posts and replies coming from members, the site alexa website rankings actually went DOWN for a while.
i always thought forums would de facto bring up rankings - more content, traffic, etc. Is it possible that forum content is considered lower quality? i remember reading that lots of new threads and such from forum members can actually hurt your rankings- is this true?
i guess i'm trying to figure out: on balance, what is the impact of forums on rankings - and if there are any negative impacts, if you still want to have one, how to minimize the downside?
thanks much for any help!
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First, I would not bet anything on Alexa data. It is based upon a toolbar that very few people use.
If you are interested in what a forum does to your search engine rankings then start tracking your Google rankings with the SEOmoz rank tracking tool.
Now, can a forum damage your rankings? I can imagine two situations where it might.
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lots of trivial content, duplicate content or trash content is posted in your forum
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forum members flood your threads with links out to spammy sites, manipulative sites, or sites about topics that google does not like
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