Lots of new members but no one posts

[Dani]

As you can see here, we get lots of new members signing up every day, but nearly no one posts. This has been true for decades and decades now. Anyone care to hypothesize why all these people sign up if not to contribute? #Lurker

[pritaeas]

Spammers? Perhaps auto-deleted?

[Dani]

I can confirm that's not happening. I can confirm they're just signing up and then leaving, and can also confirm they're not bots. There can't be that many people creating sleeper accounts for future spam attacks, so I'm ruling that out too. Plus, it's always been this way.

[monorail904]

@Dani: by looking at the table (Location column) from link you have posted, it gets more & more obvious they are spammers from India.

Btw fun-fact: Lurker? You mean Lurker.pl that pro-russian trollfarm basically?

[Dani]

Yes, I will have to agree with you that we get a lot of potential spammer-types signing up. However, no one is posting, spam or otherwise.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary: A lurker is:

Lurk*er (noun)
a person who reads messages on an Internet discussion forum or social media platform but does not contribute

[John_165]

Why do spammers want to sign up? What do they gain from programming forums?

[trcooke]

Profile spam for sweet sweet SEO internet points. Create an account, put a link in the profile, but never post anything thus reducing the likelihood of triggering the spam alarms and getting deleted down by the site moderators.

It's the back-link on a public facing web page that they want, and for that there's no difference between a forum post and a profile page.

[Dani]

Why do spammers want to sign up? What do they gain from programming forums?

A very common, and dare I say well-respected, SEO technique (that is actually vouched for by Google!) is to post in forums to earn backlinks back to your site. The legitimate way of doing it is to find forums and communities relevant to your site, and personally participate as an expert in your field. This helps you build your reputation as an industry leader and immerses your persona into communities relevant to your site's area of expertise. Google then recommends using a combination of signature links as well as injecting links within your posts, where appropriate, as long as the link is relevant to the discussion and and in good taste. Again, this technique is taught by and fully endorsed by Google. I can't find the specific article right now in Google Search Central, but I'll update this thread if I happen to come across it.

The problem, of course, is that everyone is out looking for a shortcut. This is especially true when SEO firms outsource link builders overseas who don't know better than to employ watered down versions of Google-recommended techniques. You now have some random person in India hired by an SEO firm who is tasked to build forum backlinks for a site about <insert highly technical subject>. They're instructed to post in forums with links pointing back to the client. It's not their fault.

DaniWeb fits a very specific intersection of requirements here. Firstly, it's a site with a well-respected and strong backlink profile per Google's algorithm (meaning that a link from DaniWeb carries a very significant amount of weight). Simultaneously, it's a site that is no longer popular enough to be likely to have an active and strict moderation team that is on top of things. (This means that one can assume that promotional posts might be likely to be overlooked.) Thirdly, DaniWeb has had a very long and deep association with the SEO industry (I used to speak at SEO conferences going back 25 years, and we're well known by top SEO firms and "famous" Googlers alike). This means that we're high on the radar of nearly all SEO firms. Those three things together are kinda the trifecta for being a target.

[Dani]

Profile spam for sweet sweet SEO internet points. Create an account, put a link in the profile, but never post anything thus reducing the likelihood of triggering the spam alarms and getting deleted down by the site moderators.

It's the back-link on a public facing web page that they want, and for that there's no difference between a forum post and a profile page.

Very true. However, new members have their profiles at /profiles/ which is blocked via robots.txt, so crawlers never even go there. (In fact, we block known crawlers such as Googlebot with an HTTP 403 error, just in case any decide to go rogue and sneak around.) Once you earn 15+ reputation points, your profile gets moved to the /members/ folder. Too bad spammers waste their time.

[Dani]

It's the back-link on a public facing web page that they want, and for that there's no difference between a forum post and a profile page.

From an actual SEO perspective, there's a very strong difference between a forum post and a profile page (not all pages are created equal), but for the purposes of this discussion, I digress.

[ksadas]

I think a lot of people sign up with the intention to participate, but end up staying silent for a few common reasons.

For one, many users are just looking for answers, not necessarily conversation. Once they find what they need, there’s no strong push to post. Also, forums can feel a bit intimidating—especially if there are long-time experts around. People may worry about asking “basic” questions or saying something wrong.

Another factor is that a lot of problems get solved through search. By the time someone signs up, they might already have their answer, so they don’t feel the need to contribute anymore.

And honestly, lurking is just how a huge portion of internet communities function. People read, learn, and move on quietly.

That said, converting lurkers into contributors usually takes lowering the barrier—like encouraging simple questions, beginner-friendly discussions, or even just making it clear that participation is welcome at any level.