How to get a "forums only" site going?

I would love to know the secret.

[Eric Martello]

I see a lot of websites that are wholly comprised of forum postings, covering a wide variety of topics. My question is, if I were to set up some forum software on a given domain, how would I get that initial burst of traffic needed to jump-start the forums? I doubt any search engine will pay attention to an empty website, and I do not have the money to pay for advertising (nor would I want to, because I would not be running the forums for profit). What is the big secret to successfully launching web-based forums? Where do I go to find active, posting members?

Eric Martello

[Eric Martello]

Actually, this website makes a perfect example. How did this site get going when it just started out and had no members, no posts and therefore little to no content?

[chris_f]

Here are some related threads:

[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]
[webmasterworld.com...]

and here is the a good search to bring up more threads [google.com]

atob
c

[AAnnAArchy]

<<I doubt any search engine will pay attention to an empty website...>>

I just started a new forum. I seeded it with about 15 new threads and it was in Google within a week. I have less than 20 users and no one has more than twenty posts, other than the two admins. It's a book discussion board and I haven't really done much to try to attract new users yet. Nonetheless, Google still found me. The only backlink I have is from my programmer's list of sites he's worked on.

I also have another forum with 4500+ members and it's non-profit *and* LOTS of work/money. Have you thought about what you'd do if your forum became really popular? I hadn't. lol A lesson learned.

If you build it and get a couple of decent links, Google will find it.

[Eric Martello]

Well, I don't expect my forums to get too big. If they do, I am sure I can find some people willing to help me out, because at that point, I would probably have a few "loyalists" in my member list. My goal is to create a resource that remains free to the public. I will never charge subscription fees or anything. If I got too big for my shared hosting, I would seek out some sponsored hosting and just put a little ad on the site saying "Hosted by XXXXX". I doubt I'll ever get it that big anyway. :)

So even if google does index an empty or sparse forums website, the lack of content will probably not attract many users. It seems like I need to get a few buddies together to "seed" the messages and get some interesting discussions going...based on what was said in the other posts on this forum. I wonder how long it would take to gain that momentum where it can sustain itself.