Yesterday I posted a blog entry on valuing forum content. There I included several things that I feel adversely affect forum content seo wise. What do you guys think about some of my assertions, are they on spot or off the mark? Also, is there anything that I neglected to mention?
You make some good points. What I would add is that the "paid to post craze" doesn't always involve such tangible and simple rewards as money. There are a lot of forums that have various incentives for users to inflate their post counts, and these can easily lead to the same sort of filler content and short, thoughtless posts. So you also have to look at what a forum is offering their users in return for regular posting. Another thing you haven't mentioned is the ratio of lurkers to real posters. Some forums are riddled with bot signups. This is less of a problem to fix when these bots simply join, but don't bother to post. But when they leave single utl-drop posts, it can be quite a job to clean them up and adversely affect the forum's value.