I saw on a forum that they were giving away gmail accounts to the first 10 people with 20+ posts. It was only a small website with less that 25 users.

So how did they get those gmail accounts. I would like to have a similar compitition on my site to help it get going, but i don't know how they got those accounts.

Those contests are lame. Get your forum posts up there by advertising, and giving people reasons other than bribes to come into your site.

More than likely, what they've done is invited themselves numerous times to Gmail, giving them multiple accounts, and basically farm Gmail accounts for invites. That's kind of a perversion of what Gmail's supposed to be for, and what good will a Gmail invite do you when it goes final? You're just one of a million who will have a Gmail account.

Just stick to improving your forum content, and get your name out. That way, you won't just get a bunch of people trying to spam your forum, and then leave after getting the requisite 20 posts.

Thanks, i had a look at your forum and its very popular, how long has it been up and what kind of publicity did you use to get it going?

That's a good question-- ask Dani; she'll probably see this post. She's the one who gets all of the stuff done with search engines, and the like.