Oct 092008
 

webmasterserve

Calling all webmasters! There’s a new webmasters forum in town, Webmaster Serve. There are always new webmaster forums being created, but I think this one has a fighting chance. Webmaster Serve was created by the same guys that brought you UKWF, a popular webmaster forum run in the UK.

Forum Categories

The main forum categories cover search engines, design and development, and site hosting. The also have a marketplace where other webmasters can buy and sell everything from advertisements to an entire website. In regards to their search engine category they introduced a new (new to most webmaster forums) sub category covering SEO Marketing. Most forums just talk about how to optimize for a particular search engine, and they techniques they use. I believe learning the hows and whys of SEO Marketing is a better starting point.

More Than a Forum

They also have a webmaster blog of the recent goings ons that effect us webmasters, and a bunch of cool webmasters tools that are free to use. The tools are mostly pre-written code that you can slap in your site to do things like create rollovers, generate meta tags, or site maps.

Will It Succeed?

I think it will. Starting a forum, like I have said many time before, is a tough business, especially a webmaster forum. These guys have done it before though, so I believe they have the know how. They have also limited the number of categories, and sub-categories. This is key in maintaining the appearance of activity. Nobody like to visit a ghost town. One other big plus in their favor? It’s not green…

May 242008
 

For those of you that know me, you know you can often find me on the busy Digital Point webmaster forum as ‘camp185′. A common thread I see there is “What other forums are out there”. Well, I have found another busy forum for those of you to expand your horizons. It’s UK Webmaster Forum.

Powered by vBulletin, like DP, they are ready to rock. Unlike DP though, the site doesn’t seem to revolve around Google, something I like. Here are the different forum categories they have on it.

  • General
  • Website Traffic and Marketing
  • Webmaster Marketplace – My initial interest
  • Web Design and Website Development
  • Business Discussions
  • Boss Cart Support Forums
  • Community
  • The Lounge

One of the really cool things they had on it, and I think it will quickly become normal thing, is the tag cloud they added. I’m not a big fan of tag clouds for a small site, but on a forum it is a perfect fit. It’s an easy way to see what is hot, and what is not. They also put the vBulletin software to work by using more of its functions vs. DP. Scrolling near the bottom they additionally have the Top 5 Stats which ranks many of popular activities like most popular threads. Like the tag cloud it can be handy to see what is going on.

Honestly, I think this is the first place I have seen a tag cloud on a forum, and I just think it’s a great idea. In fact I think it’s the most effective use of a tag cloud out there. Two big thumbs up for UK Webmaster Forum. Now I will have to see how well they respond to this American guy when I start posting. Look for me, camp185.