Will adding a forum to my site help with SEO?

21 replies
  • SEO
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I'm considering adding a forum to my site and building a "community" there. Will the added posts/pages, and content help me get ranked higher?
#adding #forum #seo #site
  • Profile picture of the author Juvv2096
    The foum posts can rank for keywords much like any other page on a website.

    My suggestion is to create a forum for your niche, not for SEO rankings.

    Forums are meant to be enjoyed just like the WF is.

    If you make your forum about being part of the community, the rankings and traffic should take care of itself.
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    • Profile picture of the author Letsurf
      thanks for the advice. Have you used any forums for wordpress such as bbpress or simple press? I can't decide between these two.
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      • Profile picture of the author awddude
        Originally Posted by Letsurf View Post

        thanks for the advice. Have you used any forums for wordpress such as bbpress or simple press? I can't decide between these two.
        Sorry I know the frustration when picking a forum, there are a lot of things to consider. Never had one on the WP platform though.

        What niche is your forum going to be in?
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  • Profile picture of the author awddude
    More content = good.

    The downside is a forum can be hard to publicize, make popular, and moderate... and the time it takes to do that can be used more effectively on targeted article writing.

    Not necessarily though it depends on the site, and as another member wrote forum posts can rank too.
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    • Profile picture of the author StoneWilson
      Originally Posted by awddude View Post

      More content = good.

      The downside is a forum can be hard to publicize, make popular, and moderate... and the time it takes to do that can be used more effectively on targeted article writing.

      Not necessarily though it depends on the site, and as another member wrote forum posts can rank too.
      If you have enough regular visitors, it's ok to build a niche-related forum, otherwise, don't waste your time on that, write more quliaty contents and generate more traffic from FB and Twitter.
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  • Profile picture of the author drewmcntyre
    I think if you add a forum page to your site and make it popular then you can get traffic for your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author Gary Gomez
    I ran a forum using phpBB seo plugin which was fantastic for optimisation but a nightmare to set up, but produced perfect urls.

    Its amassive amount of work building a busy community as well so take that in to account.
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    • Profile picture of the author Letsurf
      A forum will integrate perfectly into this niche. Actually it's something that this niche is missing but really needs so I think it will work out well. Thanks for all the advice.
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  • Profile picture of the author WakondaMarketing
    Creating a forum is not that very beneficial in terms of SEO or ranking a website in the SERPS. But if you just want to build a medium of communication as well as a lasting relationship to all the people that belong in your niche, then building a forum is the best way to go. Not to mention, it could give a decent push to your website's traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author JuicerFan
    Hey there,

    You set up a forum that allows sigs as easy as this great forum and I will definitely post there.

    Sigs bring the hits. You set it up, Im there posting content like a Boss.
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  • Profile picture of the author prcys
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Letsurf View Post

    I'm considering adding a forum to my site and building a "community" there. Will the added posts/pages, and content help me get ranked higher?
    Yes forum to the site be helpful to get the more engagement of the visitor to the site , also be helpful to get the more new and authentic content also. And through starting the thread own , on the forum community , you can promote the content also which can be indexed in the forum results also. So these all the benefits you will get from the forum to the site.
    But the thing to be careful when make use of the forum , that be sure for not spamming on your community.
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  • Profile picture of the author pjman
    Inactive forums are food for Panda these days. Spammers hit them with useless duplicate content all the time. I you have time to moderate and noindex the entire forum, it might add value to your visitors, but not SEO.
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    • Profile picture of the author JuicerFan
      Originally Posted by pjman View Post

      Inactive forums are food for Panda these days. Spammers hit them with useless duplicate content all the time. I you have time to moderate and noindex the entire forum, it might add value to your visitors, but not SEO.

      Hey You said it man.

      I was recently reading a poker forum. You know about what happened to Poker in the US recently. It got shut down like Motown.

      Anyways I was reading this forum. Aint one of the big ones but it was maybe top 10 Poker forums in the day.

      And I see that some spammer had registered and filled like 20 posts with nothing but spam links.

      Darn shame.
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  • Profile picture of the author masterjani
    You can use MYBB that is free and more productive too.
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  • Profile picture of the author rooze
    I have a small niche forum on Yabb with around 16,000 posts - almost 13,000 are indexed in Google and it shows up all over the place for relevant search terms. So yes, it can help with SEO.....but they stick out like a sore thumb if you can't get people to use them and devalue the rest of your website (assuming it's an add-on).
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  • Profile picture of the author HorseStall
    It can. In a lot of ways a forum is like a blog, in that it produces new content on a regular basis. Make sure you use a search friendly platform. Keep in mind though forums take effort and attention.
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  • Profile picture of the author Venetian
    I have learned (the hard way) that forums are difficult to jump-start and manage. I run a small travel forum that took me very long to establish and get-going and still it gets very little posts.

    Most people read and do not participate ....
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  • Profile picture of the author WordsofWorth
    I have personally used BBPress and integrated it with WordPress. There were some teething issues, but once set up it runs well and has some nice cross over features with WordPress, such as posts on the front page and users only having to log in once.

    It is hard to skin though, and isn't supported that much. A better option is VBulletin, and that connects with WordPress to some degree too, as you can create new forum threads from new blog posts on the fly. That's a better forum.

    As for SEO benefits, massive. So long as you have an active community and keep the spammers at bay, you can get great ranking benefits from a forum.
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  • Profile picture of the author lovboa
    Banned
    Just don't make it a .edu extension or else await your inevitable spam fest!
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    • Profile picture of the author Letsurf
      Originally Posted by lovboa View Post

      Just don't make it a .edu extension or else await your inevitable spam fest!
      Do the 2+5=? spam protection protect against automatic seo posting software? Now that I'm starting to mess with blogs and forums I'm starting to understand how much a pain it can be the SEO's spam the hell out of everything. I've never been the type to build crap backlinks with automated software but this gives me a better understanding of the daily challenges legitimate forums go through with regards to spammers.
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  • Profile picture of the author Letsurf
    Originally Posted by talks 44 View Post

    It helps in the sense that you will get more visitors if you have seo your forum, and more pages of your website will be indexed/rank in search engines.
    Does anyone know if each post counts as a page to google? Or does each thread? Not sure how google sees and indexes forums...
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