It's 2018 FFS, why bother with an SEO Forum?

[Martin MacDonald]

Thats a great question, and to be totally honest I’m not sure if there is a market for this kind of forum, or community any more. Its not 2008 after all.

Here’s the thing, every other major webmaster forum has fallen by the wayside over the last decade, Crea8asite is being sunset this week for goodness sake. They’ve been wholly consumed by Facebook and Twitter, thing is, both those platform have significant problems that would have slowed down MY learning, when I was getting started.

So whats the problem with Social Media platforms then?

Well, depends:

Facebook – there’s hundreds, probably thousands of Facebook groups dedicated to SEO or online marketing. Ever tried searching for a specific answer in a FB group? It doesn’t really work. Ever tried looking up that conversation you had a year ago with someone? Yeah, that too.

Then there’s the infighting and spam, if a groups tightly administrated, I guarantee there will be problems between admins and members – on the other hand, if its not, then there’ll be countless spam posts. Sucks, but thats possibly just the nature of our industry?

Twitter – Great for whats happening *right now*. Terrible for what happened even a day ago, and as a platform is specifically not designed for measured, nuanced conversation. It’s great for tiny, frequent updates, not great for sensible discussion.

So Why is any Forum (much less this one) Better?

That depends. I guess no other answer in SEO is more appropriate.

Let me explain: a forum can be the best place for detailed discussion and conversation, its not limited by the platform issues on social media. But, without active members, a ‘community’ its nothing.

The quality of any forum is 100% based on the quality of the members – and it seems most people have abandoned the very concept OF a forum.

Maybe this will work, maybe it won’t. Either way, I’m going to try and provide an environment where both industry veterans and fresh starters are welcome, where people are safe to discuss whatever they want without being judged (by facebook group mods, for instance), and where trolling doesn’t happen (like on twitter).

Fingers crossed its not a huge waste of time, and that this actually helps someone, somewhere.

[Author]

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