Hello all.

I've been researching and reading (for months)and have developed a huge keyword list, ideas and outlines for articles, sources to get other articles and found some affliate products to promote. I hope that i am ready to at least, start working on my own website. My question is that after much thought, I belive the audience i'm targeting will benefit from a forum on my site. Technically speaking, is this realistic for a newbie to run a site with a forum on it? What does it mean legally? How liable are you for every "knuckle-head" that posts something cruel or deceptive?

Also, does the content that is being posted by vistors count to the search engines? Meaning, if people were to use my targeted key words, would this help my ranking?

Basically, i'm looking for advice from anyone that hosts a forum-type website. Like this one!

Thanks!!!!!!!!

Nicole

Well I'll be straight with you Nicole.

Starting a forum is a very long and arduous task unless you already have some sort of a following already in your chosen niche or industry. That's not to say that it cannot be done, but expect it to be fairly quiet it for a while. Unless perhaps your site hits real big, real fast.

As far as legalities of crude comments etc. I don't believe their are any legalities on that, as the internet is still considered a place where complete freedom of speech exists.

The content from posts most definitely does help with the search engines because content is always being updated and added on a continual basis, so for SEO purposes they are fantastic.

As such if your forum is targeted around a certain niche your keywords are bound to come up continuously just in the threads of the forum.

As far as management of a forum, well, lol, it can be a pain in the butt trying to keep spammers out, and people with negative attitudes etc. Especially if you have a forum that gets as popular and great as the one Holly put together for us here. We as members have been really fortunate in the way this forum has turned out, there isn't another as friendly and helpful on the net.

Part of my job helping Holly with this forum is keeping out all of those bad elements, and sure sometimes I think some posters have tried to test my patience, but at the end of the day I couldn't be happier trying to help her out in keeping this place a positive, giving and helping environment.

Cheers and I hope that answers your question.

take care,

Davin

Thank you! I'm not crazy about the idea of a forum b/c it seems like a lot of "extra" work and i'm already so busy. But, when i research my niche, it really seems like there is "need" for it. who knows, it might be fun... i'm glad to hear the content in the forum will help with ranking. Makes sense.

Now i'm looking at what websites to go with. I believe, Holly recomends using Joomla in her ebook, esp if you want to host a forum....

Thanks again!!!!!

Nicole

hello,im using webpage maker. its an easy to use little program with drag-n-drop features, fast to add text html copy and paste. target="_blank">http://www.webpage-maker.com/

also i picked up a book at barnes and nobles called "increase your web traffic in a weekend" by jerry lee ford. it is a thomson course technology book that really got me started on 190 search engines in just a few minutes of my time. lots of good info there for the money.
heres a link to the actual book on their site.hope it helps some..

http://www.courseptr.com/ptr_searchResults.cfm?searchText=increase+your+web+traffic&submit=Go

Davin,
I, too, enjoy this forum, but have you ever been in the SBI forum? Oh my word! If you'd like to take a peek around for a few days, you can be my guest. Just use my domain name chocolate-candy-mall.com as the username and password. It is a lot of fun, and a real eye-opener. http://forums.sitesell.com

Happy reading!

Great advice dav!