Adding a Forum

[dirkji]

I have a site that's doing well in the search engines and I want to keep it that way. I was thinking about adding a forum to the site, but I was wondering if adding a forum can have a negative impact on SERPs.

Kind Regards,
Dirk

[bouncybunny]

I don't see why it would have a negative effect in isolation.

My only thoughts are that a forum can take a long time to build up into a thriving community. On its own it often doesn't give a lot back financially and you may have to be prepared to put a lot of effort into building it up. Nothing looks worse than an empty or unvisited forum. I would certainly suggest checking out The Admin Zone and other sites that have resources for forum owners.

But it can certainly bring in some interesting traffic from subject you might never have thought of yourself, as users begin to contribute content. Once it takes off, it can be a rewarding experience also and you get to find out a bit about what your site visitors are thinking.

[dirkji]

Thanks Bouncebuddy.

[wolfadeus]

I would not worry about the SERPS, but agree that building up a community is a demanding task. If you don't want to risk having a forum hosted on your own site, why don't you host it externally?

For a test period, for example, later you could implement it into your site if you like how it developed.

Good luck!

W.

[benevolent001]

Why you thin forums can affect your SERP negatively , if they can affect the only way is that they would give lots and lots of good traffic to you for free

Just dont think too much on this , use some good forum script there are plenty , use phpbb use some SEO mods in the forum and see how many visitors your forum can get from SERPs , offcourse you have to drive it and which is the most challenging part in getting a forum for website

Good luck

[Turbulence]

I don't see why it would have a negative effect in isolation.

My only thoughts are that a forum can take a long time to build up into a thriving community. On its own it often doesn't give a lot back financially and you may have to be prepared to put a lot of effort into building it up. Nothing looks worse than an empty or unvisited forum. I would certainly suggest checking out The Admin Zone and other sites that have resources for forum owners.

But it can certainly bring in some interesting traffic from subject you might never have thought of yourself, as users begin to contribute content. Once it takes off, it can be a rewarding experience also and you get to find out a bit about what your site visitors are thinking.

Yes, you will definitely put a lot of effort into a forum building and maintenance but it will be worth doing it. Forums not only don't have any negative result on SERPs but they normally even help the optimization of your website. However, it really takes time and results won't come overnight but they would be definitely very satisfying.

Good luck,

Turbulence