It’s spring time in the United States. Flowers are a’blooming and webmasters are stirring about the discussion forums and pollinating threads. Forums rock, but one annoyance I have is the same topics seem to get posted over and over. This is due to the way forum software is designed–threads asking/answering the same question descend into the nether regions of unbumped posts and eventually get buried.

As sure as the seasons, every SEO knows that Google updates toolbar PageRank and backlinks about 4 times each year. It’s quite comical to observe how one person, usually a newbie, posts a new thread in the webmaster forums announcing that he is not sure, but he may have discovered a Google update is underway. Lurkers chime in, questioning, rebutting, ridiculing in prosaic banter until finally everyone agrees that a Google update has occurred. Then, there remains only one thing to be said.

“Google is updating.”

“I’m seeing changes.”

 ”Me too!”

“I don’t see anything. Wait, now I do.”

“When is the next update?”

The inevitable “Google is updating forum thread” became such an annoyance at SitePoint that the Google Forum moderator posted a sticky thread explaining the frequency of Google PR updates and warning members not to “start any new threads asking about when the next update will occur.” I checked a few forums and quickly picked out the Google update threads. Like the seasons, I doubt that this ritual will ever change.

Retsambewers, start your engines (no pun intended). The Retsambew Dash Klat for Charity SEO Contest announced by Tim Shroeder of Webmaster-Talk.com on April 3rd carries a smaller cash and prize value than the big contests like the Shoemoney SEO Contest we reported earlier. The Webmaster-Talk SEO contest cash and prizes are valued at $5000 or so while the Shoemoney contest is said to be valued at over $25,000.00 (details are forthcoming). But, the booty is not the only factor that webmasters and SEO’s consider when joining. What I like about the Retsambew Dash Klat for Charity contest is Tim’s careful consideration in formulating a fair contest for new webmasters as well as experienced site owners. A few of the key rules that will no doubt hamstring some are:

• Bloggers may not benefit as easily because no remotely hosted blog domains or even subdomains are allowed (except for backlinking).
• Owners of older domains cannot get a leg up in rankings from any Google bias toward the age of their domains or existing incoming links because a new domain name must be used (must be registered after 4/3/2006).
• Perhaps the best leveler of the playing field is that the contest keywords (Retsambew Dash Klat for Charity) cannot be used in the domain.

I’ve been a member at Webmaster-Talk since 2002 and have enjoyed reading and posting on the discussion forums there. Tim has done a great job of thinking through and planning Retsambew Dash Klat for Charity. Charity sites are not the most SEO friendly. It’s especially nice to see the benevolent side of webmasters being brought out in that one of the goals of the contest is to put focus on charity sites. I’ve set up a special Retsambew Dash Klat for Charity site to keep up with the contest, push for charity, and hopefully to compete with fellow webmasters and SEO’s. Let’s see if the Retsambew Dash Klat for Charity page attracts any attention from search engines. The full details of the SEO contest are available at Webmaster-Talk Forums.

It’s amazing what you can learn by poking around in your web site’s server stats. I use AWStats to analyze server log statistics for ForumPoint.com. I like to peek at the “keyphrases used on search engines” statistics to see how people are getting to the site. AWStats shows you the top phrases that people searched on Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. This snapshot tell s a story. Notice the phrase at the bottom:

contact or mail or email or phone or fax or tel site www.forumpoint.com

It looks as if someone has a massive database of domain names for which they are performing automated queries on search engines to mine contact information. I would imagine that this type of data could have value since it would be more reliable–at least for marketing purposes–than the oft spamed whois record data. Once this info is mined from thousands of sites, what will be done with it? Dump it on a scraper site? Organize it in an AdSense laden yellow pages directory? Sell it? This is not a very comforting discovery and probably a good reason for the paranoid to hide data intended only for site visitors. A text image or JavaScript should do the trick.

There is an interesting thread started by Mook-Jon on the SitePoint.com Advertising Sales & Affiliate Programs forum entitled “Screenshot: My CJ Stats.” The thread has now been removed, I see, but the post was intended by the author to “show people what can be accomplished with the right amount of work and research in specific markets to make what I do.”

Why has the thread generated so much controversy? The screen shot of Mook-Jon’s CJ stats for the two month period show $81,332.78. Some webmasters are cheering Mook-Jon’s openess as motivational and others are questioning the screen shot’s authenticity (he isn’t stating what sites he owns but others are busily trying to investigate and publicize them).

Mook-Jon is generously answering questions and giving advice on how he achieved this figure using the Commission Junction affiliate network. Seeming to be more of a marketer than a developer or content writer, some of his statements are provocative and seem outside the typical webmaster box of thinking. The main thrust of the questions is:

“How did you do it?”

How easy is it to set up a forum? –asked by B.C.

To install a forum or any script, you normally have to upload the script files to your server, setup a database connection, then follow a series of steps to install (often done via your browser). If you have a web host that offers a cPanel control panel feature, you may be able to install phpBB2 or SMF forums via the Fantastico feature, which eliminates many of the hassles of installation. vBulletin seems to be by far the most popular forum software available.

Installing a forum software script is the easy part. The biggest challenge of forum owners–at least the most time consuming–is keeping regular communication with the forum users who post questions in threads. Moderating a forum can take a great deal of time and commitment.