David you are free to come and post some quality content threads on my site any time. ;)

This is why it's a good idea to not allow posts like "thanks" and such. Those are all duplicate content when the SE's view the single post and really, they are lame.

That being said, it's tuff to come up with quality content that is unique on a daily basis. For some people it's a living, for others it's just a hobby. And in the forum business, the hobbyist is the dominent trait.

I have no doubt that they bring in hits. I have no doubt that your forum does well and congratulate you for that.

But look at it from an outsiders point of view who could care less about your revenue, number of signups, or anything like that. Are those threads going to impress them? Are they going to leave thinking, "That was a great read."

And I've always felt that tricking or forcing someone to signup only hurts you in the long run. We should have people signing up in droves because of the quality of content and interaction. This is part of the reason that wikipedia is becoming so prevalent in the SERPs for a given term. It is invariably QUALITY content. It's why forums like SomethingAwful can charge people to join and they do so in droves. Because the content and interaction is amazing.

*edit*I think that would be a good compromise.

Again, please don't think I'm picking on you or I am trying to put anyone down here. I'm as guilty (if not more guilty) as anyone here. I simply came to the realization that most forums have little to no quality content worth sharing. I'm sure most people already realized this long ago, but I'm a little slower than most. Only difference for me is I really want to see forums succeed and have a big mouth :)

Using the example search keywords I posted above, my answer is yes. If they are interested in luggage for the XX, then they will find the information they need.

Lead the way! I'd make a great sheep. I follow quality content. As an example, I was REALLY impresed with Brent at www.vBulletinZone.com when he first started it. He produced some QUALITY content and I had fun interacting there. It's tapered off a bit, but I'm still hopeful.

Agreed. Replies should only be made if they add value to the thread.

Absolutely, it's HARD. But as a forum owner, if we strive to create even two HIGH quality threads on a weekly basis, then the dividends over time will make everything worth it. If a forum owner can't take a a few hours a week to write two high quality threads, then they either have no business running the forum or arent that interested in the topic.

Understood. Tone is almost impossible to detect when reading things online. And the same goes for me, my replies have not been stated in harsh tone, or have not meant to be anyway. ;)

None of those results you posted are threads though and as an outsider, if I search for something and then have to click through various threads before I find what I'm looking for, I get annoyed.

And there are less than 20,000 results for each meaning that they are highly UNCOMPETITIVE keywords. My bet is if someone wrote a quality thread/article for each of those keywords that they would outrank you.

As forum owners, we should be able to line up thread after thread after thread where we say, "Look, this is quality content." And I just don't think most can do that, me included.

Cool, thanks :) My tone is meant to be helpful/evangelical :) I'm passionate about forums to the point of it probably being unhealthy. And I think a lot of us have forgotten the basics. We've gotten so caught up on SEO and fancy mods and styles. Let me use an analogy. Would you regularly go to someone's house that is easy to find and looks great if you knew that when you and the people in the house sat down together, you'd just stare at each other and once in awhile say, "Sup dude?"

That's the main reason I sold FireBlades.org. It's a HUGELY popular site, and makes a large amount of money, but I no longer felt connected to such a broad-topic site. So I felt it was time to move on to more focused topics in which I'm interested.

Some thoughts:

• Quality Content + Usability = Success
  Quality content alone will not help a site grow. Quality content can help draw people to the site; but, the overall experience is the key to acquiring and keeping quality members.
• What you describe as crap others may describe as quality.
• Your forum's style (layout/design) can have a (positive or negative) affect on seo and growth. Based on what I have seen so far, 99% of current custom vbulletin styles have a negative affect on seo and usability.

A quality member is defined as:

• someone who registers and participate (not leave after a few weeks use)
• someone who participates frequently (active)
• someone who brings in more members
• produces quality responses, articles, etc

Here's some keywords and it's google rank: (look for vb.org)

• Cache Templates - #1 out of 1,490,000
• Template-Based System - #1 out of 843,000
• Create Custom Pages - #1 (generic) out of 28,200,000 unexpected
• Custom Pages - #10 out of 99,200,000
• Development Cycle - #37 (generic) out of 91,100,000

This one was also a surprise:

• USERCP Interface, USERCP, vbulletin USERCP, vbulletin interface - on 1st page

Woops, looking at these Google results tells me there's a few things I can improve on. :D FYI: Search Results could be better (throughout the site); but I ... never mind.


My point is .. if you are really worried about growth, you should spend more time on developing a site plan and style that is both user and seo friendly.

Usability = overall experience

does this thread count as quality content?

An interesting discussion for some? Sure. Quality content? A couple posts were pretty good. Worth submitting to Digg or Synergy for the world to see? No.