Do you need a forum?

As soon as a webmaster sets up a website, he is quick to add a forum to it. I dont know why people do this but in my opnion, it can hurt a newly established website. I do agree that forums are a great method of prviding customer service or helping and providing support to visitors but it can also send negative signals. A newly created website wont have that much traffic and hence the forum would be even more lonely, any visitor who would visit the forum would think its a new siteand doesnt have much and would probably leave. SO in my opnion you should only set up a forum for your website if you really need to have one.

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WebsPassage Directory - PR5 - $2 per listing

Forums are necessary for popular websites. It makes the visitor to stick with website. However it isn't necessary for new websites IMO.

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well people who can start forums and make good use of it are those who are prepared to spend cause their foirum would be popular only when it gets advertised and they need to spend for doing that

Forums are a very good way to keep people intersted in your site. But even if the theory says "make a forum" to have greater success they don't also tell you that a forum TAKES a lot of work to start and maintain. Running a forum is almost a second job in many cases. Many webmaster start forums thinking they'll be successful from the start and then realise this is quite hard to obtain. It would also explain why so many forums fail and are deleted.

So .. you need a forum ONLY if you can cope with the constant work this implies, if you can do the admin job, know the script and know how to solve all the problems.

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Webmaster Tips & Tricks
Links for Web Design

Forums are the KEY part to websites unless the website is like a dir site.. proxy site and ect

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