New to all this...

whats the best way to get users to my forum?

Also, is it best to make new users authenticate their registration or just let them join there and then in the site?

Thanks for any help

http://celticstuff.co.uk/forums

You'll get spammers advertising product and link spammers trying to up the # of sites that link to their page for search engine ranking. Not to mention the occasional drive-by psycho.

Authentication doesn't always prevent, but usually helps.

Send me a banner 468X60 and I'll add it to world-developers.com portal.

E-Mail ( mailto:webmaster@world-developers.com - webmaster@world-developers.com ).

I think it just takes time. I may be incorrect on this but, the more post you have in the forum and if you have submitted into search engines. Search engines (spider bots) will go looking all over your site and forum and especially parts of the forum with posts that all can view but can not post to until they register. This means if someone is searching on the net, in the end they may find your forum. The other way is to place a signature on all your e-mails describing the forum and inviting all to comment. Find sites relating to your site and invite them to connect in your forum. But warning look out for spam and bad comments.

I my self have a new forum and know it will take time. 

PS you can place a link on all my sites if you wish if this helps you.

Be careful about geeting classified as a "Link Farm" though. SE's count the number of sites that link to you as one of the factors in their algorithim.

But... Google and other SE's like to see the text for the link related to your site's content/keywords. Particularly on pages with a lot of links. Links from a motorcycle forum to/from a site for S+M Barbie Dolls will count against both. A whole page of unrelated links can get you penalized for trying to spam the SE.

Celticstuff wrote: Thanks Bob...will get on the case tomorrow....should i offer something similar?

Well it will adv you if you will make banner exchanges.

dpyers wrote: A whole page of unrelated links can get you penalized for trying to spam the SE.

A interesting point and I never new that. 

Search engines want to provide relevant content so they tend to be hard towards people who try to "work" their algorithms. External sites linking to you are an indicator for calculating page rank, but only if their content aligns with your key words/content. Your links to external sites are judged in the same way. To many irrelevant links either way impose a penalty.

You used to see a lot of people repeating their key words in white on white text at the bottom of the page so the SE's would see them, but it wouldn't disrupt the content. The SE's dropped those pages entirely.

Bottom line is content is king. Some useful SEO things that tend not to change over time are:

• Key words in home page title.
• Keywords in first couple of paragraphs of text.
  • Other words in text should match words found on similar sites for your keywords.
• Content Text should be "high" on the page - as the SE sees it, not as the browser sees it.
  • A few thousand line of java script before you hit content is a bad thing.
  • Download the text-based browser "Lynx" to see how SE's see your page. Note that it doesn't see links embedded in javascript.
• Pictures use text desription that is similar to content/keywords.
• For forum/portal type sites, Home page links to pages within the site that have text supporting the key words is a good thing.
  • There's a whole school of thought about how pages within a site could/should link to each other to improve page rank. YMMV
• You are linked to by similar sites.

The most important thing you can do for SEO is to pick your keywords. "Travel" or "Hotel" are not good keywords. To much competition. "Southern Sardinia Lodging" may get you positioned better for relevant searches.

Understand how SE's use plural/singular. Goolge will "add the S" for keywords, but not delete it. I have a site with the keywords "....Teams" shows up in 2nda nd 3rd slots on first page for that search. Same search ending with "....Team" shows my site on page 4.

Run your keywords past the SE's. See who's on the first page. Run their pages through Lynx and figure out why they're their and you'll get clues to structuring your own content. - Note that "age of page" counts as well. Ask the high ranked sites to link to you.

Never buy SEO (Search Engine Optimization). The net is full of useful information. Start wth the news group news:alt.internet.search-engines - news:alt.internet.search-engines  and work out from there.

BTW. BoLt's site is a good example of the importance of content. No key words, but lot's of useful content and simple navigation. My google toolbar shows it as having a page rank of 4 which is quite good. Google has tools for webmasters so you can show sites that link-back to you, page rank, etc.