Forums and Authority Sites

[CardiffDesigns]

Hi all!

I've been building up an authority site since October and it's starting to get ranked for all kinds of long tails.

It's also developing a nice little community and as a result I'd like to set up a Forum, to generate more traffic.

Initially I wanted to integrate a Wordpress Forum plugin into my Wordpress site, but none of the plugins I could find matched the quality of something like phpBB or vBulletin.

From an SEO point of view, would it be better to set up a forum on a sub domain such as http://forum.mywebsite.com or would it be better to purchase a new domain and set up the forum on there as a standalone site? I would just link it to and from my authority site.

Any opinions would be greatly appreciate!

Thanks alot

 

[DaleHarries]

Hi Cardiff Guy, A Swansea Guy Here!

From an SEO perspective it's probably better to stick a proper forum like V Bulletin on a sub directory.

If you have the community like you said you'll be grabbing long tails like no-ones business!!!

A great example of a forum attached to an already great site is Money Saving Expert, think it runs V Bulletin (Albeit a pretty tricked out custom version)