Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
I have no empirical evidence for this, but it seems to me that Google is increasingly returning results from forum posts.
Once upon a time, it might have been argued that forums were seen as less important to Google. Indeed, many forum owners complained that their software was not being indexed properly - or threads were being relegated to the supplemental index.
Now, not only are forums seemingly indexed more frequently - and with date specific [webmasterworld.com] information - but, it appears that they may be increasingly valued in the SERPs.
I have noticed this increasingly when searching for technical, or troubleshooting tips.
Now, whether this is an algorithmic thing, or simply a result of forums becoming a more popular medium for the dissemination of up to date information, or both - who knows? On the other hand, I may just be imagining it all?
All my experience suggests that forum links do not have huge value - but I'm open the suggestions that some niches - where forums provide a higher proportion of useful original info - may be an exception.
Most forums have such unfocussed content, that it's hard to believe that modern sophisticated SEs will give much credit, PLUS the abundance of forum spam must put them off further.
Some of the suggestions here seem to be turning conventional wisdom on its head ... and conventional experience, judging by many other threads, here and elsewhere .... or am I missing a trick here?
Hang on, those requirements are for Google news, which is a good policy, they can't include any news on their site that doesn't have an editorial policy. Having forums appear int eh serps is a totally different matter.
Yes, that is why I made that reference back in the beginning and wondered how much of the Google News rules applied across the board.
I do believe there have been discussions over the years where certain footprints may prevent your pages from performing as they should. Even though the above are related to Google News, my gut instinct tells me that I should also pay attention to that for everything else Google. But, that's just me, I tend to err on the side of caution. When I see stuff like the above in writing where they specifically say they cannot and will not crawl certain URIs, I pay attention. ;)
My question has still not been answered. For those seeing this favouring taking place by Google, do any of the SERPs contain the above strings?
I figure that as the forum thread fades into history I'll likely regain my #1 position.
I don't know if I'd count on that, I've had a thread indexed from early 2006 originally placed about the eighth position a few weeks after it appeared and that was simply when searching for "Company Name" without quotes. It's now firmly entrenched just below the companies website for at least the last year. .
One thing to keep in mind is this is really unique name and would not have the brand value of a national corporation but does within my extended region.
Perhaps Google is recognizing the value of many forums, I know personally if I want information I'll try and find a forum because you'll usually find exactly what you are looking for quickly if it's well run. Then again most of my searches are technical in nature..
