[ASK] How To Start a Forum?

[neo3187]

One thing some people do is they pay people to register and post on their forums to help pre-populate their forum and make it seem active so people will join. I've seen people pay like 25 cents per post.

even thats a good idea... how about prepopulating to a small extent myself and then promoting through fb?

 

[Chrisss]

Take a look at vbSEO.

 

[blackhattrial]

well..
use sql query to add members...
initial members

add utube videos related to your niche that wont take time..
but finding videos in every niche without watermarking is difficult

post some information related to your niche which is in news....

and give a link back to the source...as a member..... not as admin...
in case some one complains then u can use ur ban hammer... or what ever u wan tto do..

I used i macro but
it is successful for short replies only....not big ones...

scraping and rewriting is also a nice idea n the editing some posts to make it look more genuine and authentic

getting genuine forum activity is tuff job I will try bog search advice ....

 

[neo3187]

Take a look at vbSEO.

this looks great

 

[neo3187]

would shared hosting be sufficient initially?

 

[RandomPhantom]

Iam planning to use VB, cracked ofcourse, till now I have been working with wordpress and dont have much idea about which forum plugins are good and all that... do you have any suggestions about plugins which would make it strong seo-wise and also make sharing on FB and twitter easier??

I dont recommend using a cracked version of vb, it can give you problems if your forum grow big which is what you want it to do of course.. You can later switch over to VB, just as I did a couple of weeks ago.
There's a lot of good free forum-scripts like PHPBB (the new version should be lightyears better than the old one, MyBB and SMF.

The most important thing about forum-SEO as I can think of is to use a good URL-structure, you should make the forum script use the thread-subject in the URL and make it look like a static URL. I dont use any plugins right now that do anything with SEO. A plugin named VBSEO exist but I dont know anything about it.


(if you find my posts helpful, plz click the thanks-button )

 

[neo3187]

I dont recommend using a cracked version of vb, it can give you problems if your forum grow big which is what you want it to do of course.. You can later switch over to VB, just as I did a couple of weeks ago.
There's a lot of good free forum-scripts like PHPBB (the new version should be lightyears better than the old one, MyBB and SMF.

The most important thing about forum-SEO as I can think of is to use a good URL-structure, you should make the forum script use the thread-subject in the URL and make it look like a static URL. I dont use any plugins right now that do anything with SEO. A plugin named VBSEO exist but I dont know anything about it.


(if you find my posts helpful, plz click the thanks-button )

is it possible to migrate from phpBB to vb later?? wow i didnt know that...

 

[RandomPhantom]

is it possible to migrate from phpBB to vb later?? wow i didnt know that...

Yes, vbulletin got a script called impex that can import from about 80 different scripts.

 

[neo3187]

Yes, vbulletin got a script called impex that can import from about 80 different scripts.

i used phpbb around 3 yrs back.. is it search engine friendly? and most important of all.. is it user(me) friendly?

 

[RandomPhantom]

i used phpbb around 3 yrs back.. is it search engine friendly? and most important of all.. is it user(me) friendly?

I would be surprised if PHPBB didn't have options to change to SEO-friendly URLs but I'm not 100% sure.

 

[neo3187]

I would be surprised if PHPBB didn't have options to change to SEO-friendly URLs but I'm not 100% sure.

Ya found a mod for phpBB which makes urls seo friendly... now its tempting ... VB or PHPBB .. hmmm... vb admin has too many options, i dont even know how many of those i need... as you said i can migrate later I guess it would be better to start with phpBB and who knows it might even fulfill all the requirements of my forum

 

[neo3187]

m gonna go with phpBB.. not gonna use any cracked stuff in this

 

[blackhattrial]

hi whats the status of your forum now..
i have started another forum and used smf script..

 

[neo3187]

hi whats the status of your forum now..
i have started another forum and used smf script..

lol not gud .... we both can work together on it if u want... i dont have much time 2 devote, have a job as well

 

[Patrick.T]

I think you should submit some good post on your forum and then go for some link building tactics like social bookmarking and networking(as you already suggest Facebook fan page good approach),article submission,directory submission,Press release,guest blogging,forum posting,blog commenting.If you don't have any time then hire some SEO for it.

 

[DavidHunke]

I will be the only one posting threads

What that means?...

do you mean none but only you will post threads??? I guess this is not good idea.

However, If you mean now there is none to post threads, then i suggest you to take some people from freelancer to keep with you. However, you should target some real people for your forum; but to achieve them you have to make good PR and lots of quality threads and posts.

 

[SEO Controller]

You'll need lots of publicity and also you'll have to hire some people to post on the forums and generate buzz. Besides sheer enjoyment out of talking to others, the only thing that will make your forum standout is the information, services or freebies it offers.

 

[TNphoneman]

Automatic posting with data from Yahoo Answers is a good way to get initial content. It makes it easier to rank the forum once you have content. After the ranking, you will get traffic and people will actually answer the questions that are posted.

I did this with my own new forum and I now have 696 topics and 1436 posts from 1339 users.

Great way to fill out a forum. Spammers have now found the forum also, just deleted 6 of them....

 

[lrk89]

wow great thread im looking at starting a forum too. should get it going this weekend. thanks for the tips.

Why did virus get banned? anyone know?

 

[TNphoneman]

There is a thread in the shit list that explains it all. I have a thread waiting for approval on this very service. Hope to see it soon.

It is not that the software sucks, but the user of the software needs to know how to manipulate it so that the posts are relevant to the thread topic.