Smart Move SEW

[Anthony Parsons]

I have to say that this forum rocks. Its fast, clean, navigable, everything that SEO stands for as a demonstration. It has always been a tendancy that many of the professionals and niche experts alike, would be spread across many forums, ie. have their favourites and stick with them, though this one seems to off brought everyone into the one place more than what I have seen other achieves already.

We all circle SEW because of the quality of information that comes from it. Good job, really good job.

Thanks heaps all.

[MIDA]

Hi Anthony, I recognize you from HR. :p I nearly fell off my chair when I heard SEW was opening a forum. I had the pleasure of working, very briefly, with Danny Sullivan in 98 when I was at Cisco, in addition to reading his first SEO book. I've been using SEW, mostly as a primer for new clients ever since.

Glad to see you hear, hope I can keep up as well!

MIDA

[AndyBeal]

It will be interesting to see who can stay the course.

SEW launching a forum is going to attract a lot of "big names" simply because of vanity (me included). It's like wanting to be seen at the newest club in town.

[seobook]

I think this forum will unite many of the bigger names in SEO. There still will be many other SEO forums, but many of them will lose traffic.

The other forums which will have the greatest continued success will be the ones with strongly expressed opinions or humorous tone or some other non seo catch tied to them.

One thing about forums though is that they can only get so big before they become useless. After you grow really really really large it becomes hard to moderate and the signal to noise ratio drives away some of the best posters. With forums popularity is as much of a problem as it is a good thing.

I still think there will be plenty of room for many SEO forums. As SEO grows there will also be many more regional based forums. I don't really think there are all that many strong regional based SEO forums yet.

[mcanerin]

This is a great forum so far - I'm still trying to get my bearings, though.

I like the idea of regional SEO forums, though I notice this one has a section for non-US issues, which is nice.

I see a lot of familiar names here - Hi All! :)

Ian

[Anthony Parsons]

Hi Ian, Hi Mida....and Aaron as well under his SEOBOOK title....

I absolutely agree Aaron about the regional forums. That is the exact reason I have kicked it of in Oz. Many SEO's in Australia have forums, but none that where marketed, so I fixed that with mine. I would never bother to compete with something like this, HR, WPN, they are too set and founded I believe.

I figure this is still in beta yet, plenty of room to move and improvement.

I find the one thing that many forums don't do is prune. I understand that to keep a wealth of knowledge is great for looks and research purposes, but at the same time as Aaron said, it get to big, too hard to handle and a moderators nightmare. Yuk. Personally I don't think too much needs to be kept after several months in a forum as large as this. Everything gets mentioned over and over with new strings attached as life roles on.

I really feel at home here. Andy hit it right on the head though, all the "big names" will have to be here in reality if they want the most from publicity. More to the point, you would be crazy if you weren't he. All the SEO talent in one spot, eyes and ears, prospects and clients all focused upon the forums scouting for the right Marketeer.....ooohhhhh....shivers....he he he

[Dodger]

One thing about forums though is that they can only get so big before they become useless. After you grow really really really large it becomes hard to moderate and the signal to noise ratio drives away some of the best posters. With forums popularity is as much of a problem as it is a good thing.

You hit the nail on the head. This forum has the good/bad fortune of becoming big overnight too. I can see that 150 have registered in less than a day of the announcement.

Moderation will be tough right out of the gate I think. It is going to be tough to get a good team of moderators in here quick enough to handle the load that is sure to come just as quickly. SEW has their work cut out for them in this regard, for I think moderators need to be chosen wisely and not out of the need to just having them.

[dannysullivan]

Good moderators are definitely key for us, as well as any forum. Some of the other things we hope will help is the ability to rate threads, posts, for those posting to gain in reputation and a few other things. Once activity grows, we'll intend to highlight some of these features more for everyone, so hopefully they can help cut out any noise some may feel occurs.

[seobook]

Good moderators are definitely key for us, as well as any forum. Some of the other things we hope will help is the ability to rate threads, posts, for those posting to gain in reputation and a few other things. Once activity grows, we'll intend to highlight some of these features more for everyone, so hopefully they can help cut out any noise some may feel occurs.

Similar to SlashDot then (other than SEW having set moderators and Slashdot rotating moderatorship duties)?

[Dodger]

I think the reputation philosophy is more along the lines of a Wiki community. It is open to all to use. Then they have people of higher reputation that oversees that. It kind of takes care of itself somehow, and is not chaotic for some reason. I can't explain it -- but not all Wiki's are the same either.

[Brad]

Scale is a real problem and I think you need to brace yourself for some very rapid growth, not only because SEW is so well known but also because there is some pent up demand. (Of course problems of scale help keep so many SEO forums in business too. ;) )

I think this reputation thing should be interesting so see in action.

[MrMackin]

>there is some pent up demand.

You can say that again!

I attended a meeting in Las Vegas on May 1st where many former SEO forum moderators expressed their feeling that there needed to be a new fora where important issues could be discussed without "over moderation". I hope that this will be the place.

[Kal]

I think this reputation thing should be interesting so see in action.
Yes it will - but reputation buttons and alcohol don't mix. I tried to give reputation points to a thread last night and accidentally hit the disapprove button! :eek:

[Anthony Parsons]

Yes it will - but reputation buttons and alcohol don't mix. I tried to give reputation points to a thread last night and accidentally hit the disapprove button! :eek:

Ouch!

I think the really great thing that this forum has over the others is exactly what Andy lead too earlier. With all the big names, experts, professionals and about every angle of the marketing and promotion industry here, you lay down something and it's going global real fast. The potential of this forum for your own marketing, discussion and learning is huge. Lets face it, forums are a marketing and learning tool. You market yourself, your ability and you learn when you don't know.

I think this one has what others don't; that SEW is more a source of actual search engine information, rather than say WPN where it is generally second hand info and without the depth of knowledge and experience behind it. SEW has the core backbone of all the actual search engine info that all 'us professionals' subscribe. Big kicker IMHO.

[strategicrankings]

Hey there everyone. I agree with your points. I'm an unknown insignificant SEO consultant lost somewhere on the planet. But its great to be able to learn from all of you at one place. This forum really rocks and has "la creme" of the SEO community. I hope i will learn a lot more in the days to come.

Although i've never been able (and i don't think i will) to attend SE Strategies event, i take every opportunity to read posts from SEO experts like Danny, Anthony, OWG and others.

For me receiving the SEW newsletter and unable to have an interactive place to express some views and ask questions relative to these newsletters was a bit like an uncomplete meal, but i really think that this forum has filled this gap.

Riley

[seobook]

I'm an unknown insignificant SEO consultant lost somewhere on the planet.

Everybody starts off as an unknown. What is so cool about the SEO market dynamics is that you can learn so fast by communicating directly with and learning from whoever interests you.

Everyone is at least a little wrong. Most people are mostly right, but forums like these allow you to iron everything out. That is what makes forums so cool.

[Dodger]

That is what makes forums so cool.

That and peanut butter, right? :D

[Anthony Parsons]

More heads are better than one in most instances.

[seobook]

That and peanut butter, right? :D

Peanut butter does not exist within the forums per say, but I still know where I can get gourmet peanut butter and I did once earn the nickname "smooth operator."

http://www.ilovepeanutbutter.com/store/index.cfm?destination=smoothoperator

I also lead up the Orkut peanut butter group :)

[Dodger]

...yep, you wrote the book on Smooth Efficient Operation. ;)

[St0n3y]

Everyone is at least a little wrong.

I'm not sure I'm following you there!

:-)

[rcjordan]

Good moderators are definitely key for us, as well as any forum. Some of the other things we hope will help is the ability to rate threads, posts, for those posting to gain in reputation and a few other things. Once activity grows, we'll intend to highlight some of these features more for everyone, so hopefully they can help cut out any noise some may feel occurs.


Having witnessed a few SEO and Aff forums follow the same bell curve, I'd strongly encourage the admins/mods and serious members to read Clay Shirky's "A group is it's own worst enemy. (http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html)"

Some known trouble areas that will need board policy asap:

1 - Do you encourage/tolerate/discourage links to other forums?

2 - Do you encourage/tolerate/discourage links to commercial SEO programs/services?

3 - Sigs. Noise/abuse

[Anthony Parsons]

But why reck a good thing. If it is abused and the link is not relevant to the topic, or topic created for the sole purpose to place a link, then the mods / admin delete it and the person after future instances. To many rules wreck forums. HR has lots of rules, which is good in some aspects, though bad in others.

Simple rule, if it is required "fine", if not "don't spam the board"

The simple rule should be "spammers get banned and IP blocked" no warnings, just done.

[Jeremy_Goodrich]

Interesting reading all the "names" from other forums :)

Happy to "see" so many folks I recognize.

[pleeker]

I tried to give reputation points to a thread last night and accidentally hit the disapprove button! :eek:

Whoa -- put that in the TOS somewhere. "Don't drink and rate."

;)