How about a forum for SEO beginners

[MktgRob]

I know this sounds like I am just pissing and moaning but should we start a sub-forum in the Internet Marketing Forum for beginners and people who are new to these concepts? It seems to me a lot of the newbies on here come in and within their first 10 posts they put up some text book definition or explanation of a basic concept of SEO, SEM or how search engines work. Just thinking out loud.

[jay 11]

yea - i have been noticing the same. Typically - those 'text book definitions' are just copy/pasted content they are spamming forums with. If you see something like this - try copy and pasting a blurb from the post into a search engine, throw some quotes around it, and see if you find any exact matches. If the post proves to be duplicated spam - please report it as "bad" and we/I will review and remove accordingly.

As far as opening up a separate forum for newbie posters, I think that kind of steers away from the community aspect of DaniWeb. I'm not sure we want to give off the impression that beginners should play in their own corner. Besides, we would still need veteran posters to help inform the newbies and steer them in the right direction - which is kind of what we are already doing.

Ultimately, I think this is more of an issue with Signature Spammers. The ones that you mentioned above and the ones that come in to a thread and just repeat what you say or ask the same questions that were already addressed - just so they can drop their link. These guys are thread stoppers. They add little to no value to the discussion and unfortunately - I am not sure what we can do to combat this. :(

[canadafred]

I know this sounds like I am just pissing and moaning but should we start a sub-forum in the Internet Marketing Forum for beginners and people who are new to these concepts? It seems to me a lot of the newbies on here come in and within their first 10 posts they put up some text book definition or explanation of a basic concept of SEO, SEM or how search engines work. Just thinking out loud.

I would think something like a forum for newbies would get the same generic type responses that are visible on other Internet Marketing forums.

A newbie to SEO stands a much better chance of getting sound advice here than in most of the other traditional SEO forums who seem to advocate only the trendy search engine manipulation techniques (off-site manipulation). At least here, a GreenHat SEO is offered a much broader perspective on what is effective search engine optimization and has the option to develop content creation skills rather than just link building skills.

[MktgRob]

Both are good points and stand in contrast to late night frustration mixed with coming down of a caffeine high!

Jay11, I will be on the lookout and take the actions you suggest. But to maybe take my suggestion to a more constructive level, what about a sub-forum of just SEO definition posts. As I said in another post recently, for the true newbies it might be beneficial to have a repository of solid definitions and explanations that they can access rather than sorting through all of the other good content. Just a thought.

[stephen186]

I believe that instead of doing anything, which can make a newbie demotivated to post, we should have thread like these, so that they can always stay updated to what members want. If threads get old, it gets lost in an ocean that we have here. By posting new ones, from time to time, you can always let your voice send across to them. At the same time, this strategy also helps in keeping the thread count of the website increasing, which is good for its ranking :P.

What do you think guys, anyone with me on this??

[canadafred]

I believe that instead of doing anything, which can make a newbie demotivated to post, we should have thread like these, so that they can always stay updated to what members want. If threads get old, it gets lost in an ocean that we have here. By posting new ones, from time to time, you can always let your voice send across to them. At the same time, this strategy also helps in keeping the thread count of the website increasing, which is good for its ranking :P.

What do you think guys, anyone with me on this??

That's a good idea. Maybe we could start threads intended for Greenhats, give them SEO tips, like how to write a Title, or an alt attribute ... I'll put one together over the next couple of days as a test.

SEO tips for Greenhats could make for interesting debates too! It's a win-win.

[Flower]

Half knowledge is always dangerous. This kind of situation comes when a beginner or newbie added their post to any thread. So it should harm forums like duplicate content which are copy and paste without giving the resource.

[sknake]

I think the daniweb forums are OK. Let the newcomers get crucified for not reading previous posts, forum rules, or conducting research on the question(s) they ask. It teaches them a valuable life lesson

Likewise if you have a forum for new posters then likely the veteran posters won't read it as much to report spammy posts and it will place a bigger burden on mods to clean it up.

[angelscrocher]

I think its best way to learn about SEO, you can maximum tips find about SEO in the Forum. Even I also learned first SEO by Forum.