Does anyone know if a large forum can impact your seo rating on specific terms?

[RamseySolutions]

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?

[JamesNorquay]

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.

[EGOL]

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.

[RyanKent]

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.