Forum traffic - referral or organic?

[Rahul V J]

I learned that forum traffic is referral but I just wanted to make it sure by asking the pros here. In fact, I have a few more questions to ask since I'm relatively new to the SEO industry.

1. Will the traffic falsely show up as organic traffic in GA?
2. Under what circumstances should forum posting be used as a strategy for link-building? Would you use it if you get
(i) a fresh client with 0 backlinks?
(ii) clients with say, 1k unique visitors per month and a number of target keywords ranking, and <1k backlinks?
(iii) established clients [high traffic, more than 2k backlinks and many target keywords ranking]?
4. How effective is Quora for driving traffic provided that you've maintained a profile and increased the followers count as opposed to maintaining profiles in forums?
5. What's your opinion on a web 2.0 such as Tumblr for building traffic? Heard that if a number of people reblog, it greatly increases the visibility of posts that you share.

I noticed that forum posting appears to be useful in increasing keyword rankings but is there any point in building too many forum links? [refering to contextual links more than just signature links]

That would be all, for now. Thanks for taking the time to read.

 

[bittersweetz]

organic is much way better! also forum traffic is good!

 

[kd199121]

1. Will the traffic falsely show up as organic traffic in GA?
No It will never be shown as organic traffic

2. Under what circumstances should forum posting be used as a strategy for link-building? Would you use it if you get

established clients [high traffic, more than 2k backlinks and many target keywords ranking]?

4. How effective is Quora for driving traffic provided that you've maintained a profile and increased the followers count as opposed to maintaining profiles in forums?

Quora is very effective but you have to work hard on it providing valuable information into it so that you get good engagement

5. What's your opinion on a web 2.0 such as Tumblr for building traffic? Heard that if a number of people reblog, it greatly increases the visibility of posts that you share.

Although i dont use tumblr but i would say you have much bigger social media platform to work upon rather than tumblr

 

[persysweb]

Forum posting is the platform which links us with number of experts which helps us to gain the technical knowledge and many things. You can post your queries there and get the perfect resolution for your query. This provides the new visitors for your website too. There are various types of forum which will help you to connect to the people.

This is one of the off-page SEO technique.

 

[Rahul V J]

Forum posting is the platform which links us with number of experts which helps us to gain the technical knowledge and many things. You can post your queries there and get the perfect resolution for your query. This provides the new visitors for your website too. There are various types of forum which will help you to connect to the people.

This is one of the off-page SEO technique.

That's something I already know. Thanks, anyway.

I'd really like to hear what the more experienced has to say. Help!

 

[Jobdollarr]

Posting forums will have no effect on your website.

The most important is the keywords and content that you plant in your website

 

[TerryAMiles]

Forums traffic mostly organic traffic.

 

[Rahul V J]

Forums traffic mostly organic traffic.

I beg to differ. From what I've read forum traffic is referral traffic.

 

[scolderpete]

Forum posting on related forums is a great way of generating referral traffic. Its not a good backlink source nor can search engines confuse visitors through forums as organic.

 

[DigitalAdvanced]

I believe that any social platform available online is always a good option to consider in driving traffic, building links, and increasing a websites online presence. My personal experience is that a forum can be a hit or miss ordeal. I have found it varies from one niche to another in the power it has to help accomplish these goals. Some forums worked well for a few years then suddenly became useless in driving traffic while I have had others not work at all, and still other forums in different niches that still get results. The key in any social media is to provide value. When you build relationships and find ways to help others you can never go wrong.

 

[Rahul V J]

Thanks, mate. That was pretty helpful. So, in the long run, you wouldn't recommend forums for traffic, right?

 

[Ankitasharma]

SEO-friendly anchor text is: Succinct; Relevant to the linked-to page; Low keyword density (not overly keyword-heavy); Not generic. Keep in mind that you often don't have any control over the anchor text that other sites use to link back to your own content.

 

[don chino]

I haven't been doing forum linking for tier1 but in theory I'd say don't start with it for a fresh site. If the site is more established and has a decent backlink profile, then forum links are not bad if they are about the topic and provide value. So I don't mean automated web spam here.. Tho I wouldn't expect much link juice from it... it's usually new pages with little SEO value - on the other hand if you give good value with the topic, you'd get direct traffic.