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Best forums to post on?

by int-mark
16 replies
I am doing a link building campaign and am wondering the best forums to post on ie the highest PR forums?

I am guessing that the PR of the main home page is what classifies it as a PR 7 site (or whatever it may be) and this is the main factor that helps you get better page results? (as oppose to the individual PR of the page in the forum you are linking from where the PR is normally 0)
#forums #links #page rank #post
  • Profile picture of the author Giraffe
    Hi Int-mark,

    PR is only one "Ranking Factor". What do I mean? It is not the only measure by which Search Engines (for the basis of this discussion we are really taking about Google) determine the order of results (listings) on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

    I realise this is counter intuitive as "Page Rank" sounds as though it would of itself define the page's ability to rank in the SERPs. It does not. However, yes, as you have supposed the PR of the Home Page can be used as a general indication of the Authority of the site and its ability to give you some nice "Link Juice" through the particular forum page you post on. Do not be discouraged by the fact that page will show as PR 0 on your toolbar or other checking method.

    As to how to find the best forums to post on. PR should not necessarily concern you. Of more interest is the forum's overall authority as indicated by its ability to rank highly in search results for your niche.

    Search google for: "[Your Niche] Forum" ...(the square brackets are there just as a visual aide to separate the niche keyword from the word Forum. You might also try putting your "multiple word keyword phrase in quotes" and then Forum or Board or whatever outside the quotes, be creative and use any Google search operators you see fit.) and see what comes up. Play around in this fashion and get to know the big boards related to your topic. For instance if you were interested in the Internet Marketing niche you would no doubt have succeeded when uncovering THIS forum. Find forums like this one in your niche! They are ranking for your terms, how do you know, you found them on page one when YOU were searching!

    So don't worry so much about PR, you want to write your post and leave links on forums where your comments, thoughts and links are relevant. And you do this on forums which you have proven are indexed and rank highly within your niche. This way you are considering the only important rank the SERP rank, not PR.

    I hope you catch my drift, PR is cool, use it as an indication, but do not rely on it for your link building strategy. Think about what you want your end result to be, what is Google currently Ranking? (In the context of your question: Which forums are Google "Loving" within your niche?)

    Hope this Helps and All the Best
    Cheers,

    Giraffe

    P.S. Of course irrelevant links work too, however, consider how they will be received and their potential longevity. The above is my opinion of a Best Plan of Attack
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    • Profile picture of the author int-mark
      Originally Posted by Giraffe View Post

      Hi Int-mark,

      PR is only one "Ranking Factor". What do I mean? It is not the only measure by which Search Engines (for the basis of this discussion we are really taking about Google) determine the order of results (listings) on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

      I realise this is counter intuitive as "Page Rank" sounds as though it would of itself define the page's ability to rank in the SERPs. It does not. However, yes, as you have supposed the PR of the Home Page can be used as a general indication of the Authority of the site and its ability to give you some nice "Link Juice" through the particular forum page you post on. Do not be discouraged by the fact that page will show as PR 0 on your toolbar or other checking method.

      As to how to find the best forums to post on. PR should not necessarily concern you. Of more interest is the forum's overall authority as indicated by its ability to rank highly in search results for your niche.

      Search google for: "[Your Niche] Forum" ...(the square brackets are there just as a visual aide to separate the niche keyword from the word Forum. You might also try putting your "multiple word keyword phrase in quotes" and then Forum or Board or whatever outside the quotes, be creative and use any Google search operators you see fit.) and see what comes up. Play around in this fashion and get to know the big boards related to your topic. For instance if you were interested in the Internet Marketing niche you would no doubt have succeeded when uncovering THIS forum. Find forums like this one in your niche! They are ranking for your terms, how do you know, you found them on page one when YOU were searching!

      So don't worry so much about PR, you want to write your post and leave links on forums where your comments, thoughts and links are relevant. And you do this on forums which you have proven are indexed and rank highly within your niche. This way you are considering the only important rank the SERP rank, not PR.

      I hope you catch my drift, PR is cool, use it as an indication, but do not rely on it for your link building strategy. Think about what you want your end result to be, what is Google currently Ranking? (In the context of your question: Which forums are Google "Loving" within your niche?)

      Hope this Helps and All the Best
      Cheers,

      Giraffe

      P.S. Of course irrelevant links work too, however, consider how they will be received and their potential longevity. The above is my opinion of a Best Plan of Attack
      1) Hi thanks for your post, are you basically saying that by posting on the top forums in my niche that I will get the best Traffic AND resulting SERPs from the link? (regardless of page rank)

      2) And that comparitively speaking I am going to get more 'results' from the resulting traffic than I will from the tiny increase in SERPs I am likely to get per link?
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      • Profile picture of the author Marhelper
        Just plug this into your search engine:

        niche: vbulletin

        That will help.
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      • Profile picture of the author Giraffe
        Originally Posted by int-mark View Post



        1) Hi thanks for your post, are you basically saying that by posting on the top forums in my niche that I will get the best Traffic AND resulting SERPs from the link? (regardless of page rank)

        2) And that comparitively speaking I am going to get more 'results' from the resulting traffic than I will from the tiny increase in SERPs I am likely to get per link?
        Hi Int-Mark,

        Quick answers:
        1) Yes
        2) Yes

        But I wouldn't be Giraffe, if I were that concise, so let me elaborate somewhat:

        1)
        • Traffic: Yes definitely, your stuff is relevant, the forum is hot in that niche, you'll get the best Direct Traffic. (However, Think about "selling the click" more than Keywords in the anchor text, do both, but seeing as direct traffic will be you biggest plus here don't just keyword stuff you sig file, sig links can be like adwords ad copy and links within the context of your highly relevant and useful post will be BooYaa!...respect forum rules and be cool...) --- Back to whether it's better to be posting on the Top Forum in your Niche rather than the Highest PR forum you can find in relation to SERP ranking boost: Yes... And think about actually doing it, what are you going to be able to more of a) Put irrelevant links on a forum which has high PR but on its subject you have nothing to say Or, b) A frequently spidered forum on which you are in fact inspired to write many relevant posts and almost can't stop yourself once you're interacting with folks - Folks who will be interested in checking out your signature links and may even refer other forum members to them or visitors to THEIR Website, how cool would that be, unsolicited links from real blogs with hearty recommendations to check out yo' stuff?!
        • SERP boost: Yes this will be nice for your overall SERP rank and these babies will stick. There are better links available for boosting SERP rank sure, but a mix of link types and sources is healthy. People talk about the relative merits of Contextual Relevancy, Anchor Text etc... the thing is, go for the best you can get and think long term if links that stick are important to you. It is easy to think too technically and over complicate things. Does google check out forums to fill their index?: Yep... Do they care if someone writes a nice Post about "X" and includes a link with the anchor text "The Best X I've Found"?: yes they do. Think Natural, Act Natural, but do an Unnatural amount of it.. heh heh... You have asked about Forums so we're focusing on forums if you'd just asked about boosting SERP rank we might not have bothered going into adding Forums to the mix, but the reality is forums will give you some Sweet Direct Traffic if done right and they will most definitely give your SERP rank a leg up too (every time you post your sig file links are seen so the spiders keep on on getting a fresh little trail to follow to your site) and it Looks Natural, why, because it IS Natural, this will certainly help balance things if you are using any Mass Automated type link building methods (I'm not talking about crazy Black Hat Spamming, I just mean if you are really going to town with web 2.0-> RSS submits -> Social Bookmarking -> Pinging it all... all with automation... Good old manual Forum work is healthy, adds diversity and why not?!)
        2)
        • Well seeing as I Coffee-ed-Up and raved on answering Above, I think I've covered Question 2)
        I better wrap up. There are better ways to boost SERP rank than forums and faster. However, as far as a Traffic strategy is concerned forums are excellent and if done right, something you can feel proud of.

        There are many ways to "mechanically" drive traffic by boosting SERP rankings. Forums are not one of these.


        Cheers,

        Giraffe
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        • Profile picture of the author int-mark
          Many Thanks for your detailed and thorough response - most helpful!
          I heard that anchor text should be about 80% your primary keyword and then the rest should be varied to make your link building look natural? (which can be better tailored with forums as can easily change your signiture as you imply)
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          • Profile picture of the author Giraffe
            Originally Posted by int-mark View Post

            Many Thanks for your detailed and thorough response - most helpful!
            I heard that anchor text should be about 80% your primary keyword and then the rest should be varied to make your link building look natural? (which can be better tailored with forums as can easily change your signiture as you imply)
            You're very welcome Int-Mark, glad to help!

            Yes do vary your anchor text and the method you suggest sounds reasonable and may help with long tail. Don't be afraid to use very natural language if it's something you'd type into a SE so would others... people not only love to type questions into SEs, they type COMPLAINTS eg. "Why Can't I Pick Up Women?!" heh heh...

            Equally don't be afraid to use a particular anchor text a lot. Just break it up over time and of course as many different IPs as possible.

            With changing your signature bare in mind all your previous posts will have the new sig too, this is great for Direct Traffic for your promotions, but not so good if you in fact were receiving some SERP boost from you former sig's links. So, as discussed Signature Links in forums are mainly thought of as a Direct Traffic source.

            With any link building efforts, be sure to track you SERP rankings over time. If you're systematic, you should be able to gain knowledge of which activities bring you the best results.

            All the best,
            Giraffe
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  • Profile picture of the author acedalright
    I like this forum and digital point is alright too.

    Netbuilders has some pretty squizey ideas.

    Is squizey a words.

    Well, it is now!
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  • Profile picture of the author morry
    Well most forums won't really help you with PR, but they are good sources of traffic. Go into forums and help people out, show people you're an authority and people will actually take notice of what you have to say.

    Giraffe was spot on.

    Sean
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Linley
      There was a WSO launched a few weeks back with 500 high PR forums list..you might check that out..sorry I dont have the link handy but try searching the forum..in the wso section and forum backlinks...it was a nice list and you get 100 forums for free!...I am still thinking about adding it to my backlink system...good luck! -Mike Linley
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  • Profile picture of the author wisecrone333
    Tiny question - where do I go to find out the PR of a site?

    Thanks
    Lisa
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    • Profile picture of the author Giraffe
      Originally Posted by wisecrone333 View Post

      Tiny question - where do I go to find out the PR of a site?

      Thanks
      Lisa
      Hi Lisa,

      There are many ways including various websites that will "dig" the page rank of any URL you ask them to. You can find them by Googling "Page Rank Checker" or similar. (By the way, the "digging" of PR refers to PR checkers checking various Data Centres to confirm the reported PR is valid; it Digs into each data centre and reports back.)

      There is also Google's own Toolbar...

      However, I much prefer to use a free Firefox Plugin called SearchStatus you can grab it by googling "SearchStatus" (sorry I haven't posted enough times here to allow me to make an active link for you.) it will automatically display the PR of any page you happen to be browsing, it (by default) will also display the Alexa Rank. If you'd rather it didn't check every page automatically, you can go into the Options section, then the Privacy Tab and Check the box marked "Only get rankings after clicking on the Toolbar". There are many other uses for this plug in and I like it very much (I am not affiliated with it's maker in any way).

      Cheers,

      Giraffe
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  • Profile picture of the author Hellas
    I like Joomla forums but they are little bit tricky. Since you can be easily banned there so as on DP. But just be contributive and try to be helpful and you dont need to worry. And yes netbuilders forum are very fascinating, not the usual one. It looks everyone knows everyone there even if they dont.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jared Alberghini
    Another forum directory which shows some great stats about each forum, like number of members, number of posts, traffic, etc is Big-Boards.com :

    Big-Boards.com - The largest Message Boards and Forums on the web!

    Jared
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    P.S.

    Join The Future: Telekinetic Marketing

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  • Profile picture of the author InternetMarketingIQ
    You could always create your own forum. Call it linkdump. Invite people to come and post one link then never return.

    I'm sure it would be a huge hit.

    Where is the best place for me to drop a totally unrelated link back to my site with the hope of returning better search engine results?

    Why linkdump of course. That could be your catch phrase.
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  • Profile picture of the author masonpan
    Guys I know I'm a newbie so don't know a lot yet but the more I read the more I seem to realise how much there is to learn. All the listed answers to this question were helpful to me so this is just to say thanks to all of you for sharing your knowledge.
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