Free forums vs paid forums?

[MidnightAngel]

I wanted to get all of your opinions on free vs paid when it comes to forums and SEO. I've heard multiple things thus far, some people say that SEO doesn't work on free forums, but others say that it works just as well on free as it does paid. What are all of your opinions? I posted this on WMS as well, I am excited to see the suggestions and tips that I may receive.

 

[Hostlumina]

In regards SEO it won't matter if the forum is free or paid.

Where the difference shines between the free and paid versions of some of the forum platforms out there are the following (doesn't not apply to all)
- Ads displayed on your forum that might not be related to your community
- subdomain
- possible limited space
- more control over your hosting & forum

 

[Captured Enigma]

I like free hosting, you can buy upgrades like a domain even if you are on free hosting which is awesome. I think it is good if you don't have the money or don't want to go through all the technical details and just want a forum

 

[robertdn]

I like free hosting, you can buy upgrades like a domain even if you are on free hosting which is awesome. I think it is good if you don't have the money or don't want to go through all the technical details and just want a forum

Some free hosting limit functions or setups for your website, even they can add banner ad to your forum without your permission. Have you faced that problem?

Why don't you go with paid web hosting? they are great to start an online business website.

 

[Captured Enigma]

Some free hosting limit functions or setups for your website, even they can add banner ad to your forum without your permission. Have you faced that problem?

Why don't you go with paid web hosting? they are great to start an online business website.

Yeah i understand that. I do go with paid usually, but if I don't have the money I will go with free

 

[PTTed]

I wanted to get all of your opinions on free vs paid when it comes to forums and SEO. I've heard multiple things thus far, some people say that SEO doesn't work on free forums, but others say that it works just as well on free as it does paid. What are all of your opinions? I posted this on WMS as well, I am excited to see the suggestions and tips that I may receive.

I'm not sure I completely understand your question.

If you are asking if it matters whether the forum is paid of free for the links to be counted by Google, then free vs paid is irrelevant as long as the page can be spidered by Google and the link is a normal link without the rel="nofollow" attribute.

If you are asking whether you can get pages ranked on a paid forum vs. a free forum then it is again irrelevant as long as you allow Google to crawl and index those pages.

The only thing that would affect SEO would be if you had a paid forum that was private where you didn't allow Google to crawl and index the pages. Then the pages on that forum would not rank in the search results and the internal links that people create from inside the forum would not count at all for SEO purposes.

Google doesn't care whether you run a paid forum or free one. If you are selling links and they find out you are then yes they will care. But as long as you are not selling links, they don't care one bit.

 

[MidnightAngel]

Yes, I was wondering if SEO worked just as well on a free forum as it does a paid. So you understood...lol Sorry about the confusion.

 

[ulterios]

Whether a forum is a free or paid forum should have no direct affect on the SEO for that particular forum. What can make a difference in the SEO is the setup, software used and other things that are not directly related to whether a forum is free or not.

The same factors and aspects of SEO that are the best practices for a paid forum will be the same for a free forum with all other things being equal besides the cost.

 

[PaulAdam]

Whether you go for free or paid forum, it doesn't make any difference. Because any type of promotion is beneficial to your business.

 

[Ourbusinessladder]

I wanted to get all of your opinions on free vs paid when it comes to forums and SEO. I've heard multiple things thus far, some people say that SEO doesn't work on free forums, but others say that it works just as well on free as it does pay. What are all of your opinions? I posted this on WMS as well, I am excited to see the suggestions and tips that I may receive.

I'll suggest you go with the free forum as it can provide you the necessary benefit you expect.

 

[Dean]

As long as you are doing it correctly then SEO should work for any forum, free or paid. I think that it would make more difference in what forum software is used rather than free versus paid.

Cheers, Dean.

 

[Maria Marketing]

I do not see why seo will not work for a free forum but will for one that is not free. I think the things that you do to the forums and how you make it will be what will impact the seo the most. I am still learning a lot about seo so I do not know for sure but I think it does not matter if one is paid or free.