Are webmaster forums killing SEO
Maybe this headline is slightly dramatic but taking a look at the threads on some popular webmaster forums it might not be far from the truth.
The common threads seem to revolve around why a brand new site doesn’t rank number 1, why submitting to 5,000 directories hasn’t improved somebodys rankings and other topics such as link exchanges.
There is so much quality information available on internet marketing that is being drowned out by people who don’t know what they are talking about. The end result is webmasters are still marketing like its 2003.
If you don’t know how to market a website don’t ask in a forum. Read some blogs instead.















Not all forums are bad places to learn and discuss SEO tactics, while I would never suggest people use Digital point to ask a question (on any topic) that’s not because their are not good people there just to much noise same with all the big forums, but smaller sites like davidcastle.org/BB and similar are great places to ask advice or get a more in depth response to your question, a blog will no doubt be able to answer your questions but bloggers don’t always write their posts just for you.
Tim Nash August 24, 2007 1:06 pm | Reply
Well, I haven’t been to any of those webmasters forum. But I do believe if you want your site to do well, you are better off doing some sort of marketing than just SEO.
Even if you SEO gets results, how in the world you’d monetize that traffic?
But you are right, you are better off reading few blogs(on SEO guys like Aaron Wall) on getting traffic than some forums…
Varun Pratap August 24, 2007 1:16 pm | Reply
Agreed that there are people on DP who don’t know what they’re talking about. A quick view of the Buy/Sell/Trade forum will bring up dozens of products and ebooks that are supposed to increase SEO, but of course don’t work.
Daniel Foster August 24, 2007 9:22 pm | Reply
I have no problems with DigitalPoint Forums. I have gotten some real practical answers there.
Carl Coddingon August 24, 2007 10:34 pm | Reply
I dont really agree. Many of those webmasters are new and seek help more personally by someone because they are confused, instead of reading articles, they seek forums so they can take help from individuals like him and can even reply back with more problems to take help. So they are all into webmaster forums.
Mayank August 25, 2007 4:00 pm | Reply
Many webmasters complain to much, many SEO people don’t know what they are saying or just giving their opinon. Kind of like the news got to ignore it.
Webmaster August 26, 2007 5:59 pm | Reply
I completely agree, and if anyone doesn’t I invite them to read a couple of threads http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=12
I don’t think the average webmaster forum is useful or even designed/intended for advanced SEO discussions; but at the very least people should have some idea of what they are talking about before broadcasting their ignorance to the world.
jaybong August 28, 2007 12:17 am | Reply
webmaster forums are helpful, the problem is that a lot of the discussions and topics are lost to the depths of the archive way to quickly.
Luke February 28, 2008 1:04 am | Reply
Me too, Webmaster are really helpful because there’s lot of expert that you can talk to there.
seo tips May 8, 2008 4:09 pm | Reply