Forum Moderators: rogerd
Now, towards the end of 2007 it’s becoming pretty hard to find a content management system that doesn’t come bundled with a means for your visitors to leave their thoughts and opinions (aka content) on your pages.
After some thought, I decided to remove the forums from one of my sites. I’ll be the first to admit, my forums weren’t really that successful but it got me thinking; do we really need forums these days?
Obviously there are some sites that are based on forum software (such as our very own webmasterworld) and then we have the community portals etc, but apart from the obvious example - are they really needed like they once were?
Here are the deciding factors that prompted me to remove the forums from my site:
- I didn’t really have the time to be an active member/admin of my own forum
- Forum members would discuss the same topics that were on the main site, rather than using the comment/feedback forms, potentially diluting my main site’s content. Once I removed the forums, the number of people commenting on the main site’s pages increased as did the page’s ranking.
- A largely empty/inactive forum gives a bad impression on the main site
- Adsense didn’t convert as well as it did on the main site
- There are around 10,000,000 more active and more general forums than mine.
As you can tell, forums probably weren’t right for my site in the first place but I also realised that things are changing fast and people are more willing to use comment boxes than sign up to commitment software like forums, and I think that for some websites that’s probably a good thing.
So next time you launch a new site and immediately upload the latest version of your favourite forum script just out of habit, just give a little thought to if it’s really needed.
[edited by: Karma at 10:51 pm (utc) on Nov. 6, 2007]
There are more beneficial ways to use your time...KF
A blog may be a good compromise to allow some visitor interaction but without the maintenance issues of a forum.
They are no good at monotorising old posts, whereas forums give each post and comment equal standing in adsense.
For example 1 blog = 7 posts yet only 3 adverts. Key words are diluted by the multiple posts, and people rarely read below the first 2 anyway.
With blogs you run on the spot making new posts just to maintain your viewers, the bog itself doesn't 'grow' as a resource. You have to provide ALL the posts and information, which makes more work for yourself.
Peoples comments are not rewarded with equal standing to your post or equal visibility and cannot generate discussion threads.
Feedback for the commenter is poorer than forums so you get less visitors posting.
I predict the net will move on from this inefficient and problematic system and blogs will return to its niche markets.
I like forums too, but the key distinction I make is that a blog is better for sites where low user participation is likely.
Initially visitor numbers dropped. After a few months they were almost back to normal despite the loss of a few thousand forum threads. I was adding some new content, but nowhere near the same quantity as when the forum was up and running. Yet I still get good visitor numbers. However, the content that I was adding was of a much higher quality than 90% of the forum topics.
The lesson? Running a forum is good if you want to run a forum. It is not, in itself, a tool for SEO or necessarily the way forward for building a good website.
Forums themselves are difficult top convert into viable ad generating traffic. The demographic (in general) is less likely to click and act on advertisements and consume more of your resources (mainly your work hours, bandwidth is cheap). Getting your pages well-indexed by search engines is difficult due to limitations of available forum software.
It takes a lot of effort to build a community that is dedicated towards quality discussion. That requires stricter guidelines than most people are accustomed to and a core usergroup which will lead by example and enforce your quality standards.
A few ways to make it worthwhile:
