Does anyone know if a large forum can impact your seo rating on specific terms?
-
I have a large forum and I'm trying to figure out how to leverage it for SEO. Hopefully it'll help. Any advice? Does google ignore forums?
-
If you are looking for building links via forums you need to do the following:
-
Make a name for yourself on the forum by helping out users.
-
Post a fair bit on the forum
-
Make sure the forum is related or semi related.
-
Look for chances to place links but make sure it is a do-follow forum.
Don't get me wrong a lot of forums are junk but you can find forums which are highly authority and related they are beneficial not only for link building but traffic/lead gen.
-
-
I agree with Ryan... but also think that a forum can impact your SEO if you allow members to run wild.
If you allow them to stuff it full of crap links to bad neighborhoods, allow the bot spammers to hammer it and allow unintelligent eight word posts.. then don't be surprised if your site gets a rankings reduction.
-
From Google's perspective, web pages are treated equally. Whether the page is a static site, forum, blog article, e-commerce page, etc. it is all content.
A forum site can earn top rankings on competitive key words. Some forum threads are very authoritative and earn many links. In actuality, this Q&A section is a forum. Your question is the original post which began the thread. My reply is an additional post in the thread.
It is common to see forum threads at the top of Google rankings, especially for various troubleshooting issues where discussions and answers are provided.
With respect to using a forum for SEO, a lot depends on your forum software. Many forum software solutions are not SEO friendly. There is a lot of work involved managing the forums to keep the site on topic, remove spam, etc.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Internal blog with history and some SEO value versus new external blogs with specialized content?
We operate a blog inside a folder on our site and considering the launch of 4 highly focused blogs with specialized content which are now categories on the internal blog. Wondering if there is more value in using the external new blogs or just keep growing the internal blog content. Does fact that the internal blog is buried amongst millions of pages have any impact if we want the content indexed and value given to the links from the blog content to our main site pages.
Content Development | | CondoRich0 -
How can I use the images to improve my SEO?
Hi there, I am starting to work on my web and I have a question regarding the featured images of the articles. How can I work with them to improve the SEO of my posts? Thank you in advance! 🙂
Content Development | | lucywrites0 -
I want your SEO feedback for my site!
Hello Moz community, Please check out my website http://www.likechimp.com - I'd love to know your thoughts. I have never built links for my website but managed to do pretty well on the rankings organically. Lately, figures have dropped so need to get back up there on Google. Any tips from what you see already would be greatly appreciated! Example ecom product I sell: http://likechimp.com/facebook-shop/buy-100-facebook-event-attendees/ Thanks
Content Development | | xlucax0 -
Community Discussion: Can 10x content be short-form content?
In his (intentionally very short) post on Tuesday, Rand makes the case that long-form content isn't necessarily great content: "Rather than applying a tactic like long-form content universally or setting length as the bar (or even a metric) for greatness, we instead match our content to our audience's needs and our business/personal goals. 700 more words will not help you reach your goals any more than 7 more words. Create content that helps people. Do it efficiently. Never write an ultimate guide where a single image could more powerfully convey the same value. Trust me; your audience and your bottom line will thank you." I think this is something we all struggle with as online marketers, in one way or another. As someone who casually consumes online content on a regular basis, this also resonates with me on a personal level. I'm curious, what are your hesitations with focusing on shorter-form content that packs a wallop, and what excites you about it? Can you think of any examples of content you've come across that you consider 10x short-form content?
Content Development | | Christy-Correll7 -
Updating blogs - SEO best practice
Thinking of new blog content and one option obviously is to check out historical popular blogposts via Analytics and do fresh versions of those. So my question is what is best practice: 1. Copy and paste the old blogpost copy but edit it to be slightly different while still having the old blogpost live or 2. just update the old one and re-promote I assume it's better to have a new version of the blogpost?
Content Development | | digitalbua1 -
Does having blog on subdomain weaken primary site's SEO?
I have a Joomla site with a WordPress subdomain that I'm wanting to use as a learning center. It's far more simple for new blog editors and publishers to learn that over Joomla. The issue I'm facing is trying to figure out rather having the blog put into the primary domain instead of a subdomain will hurt my ratings at all? Where I got the idea that it may hurt ratings is due to how (from what I understand) search engines will see a subdomain slightly different than the primary domain. Thank you for any help!
Content Development | | sDevik0 -
Can forums bring down your search engine rankings?
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!
Content Development | | prospects0 -
Blog on Sub-domain affect on SEO
Hi, Setting up a blog for a new website. What affects will hosting a blog on a sub-domain (blog.mysite.com vs. mysite.com/blog) have on SEO? Also, would having a separate blog domain be beneficial or detrimental (myblog.com)? Thanks, Shane
Content Development | | notarynow0