Let me start off by explaining that I never wanted to open a forum. This decision was done out of necessity. If you ask people, I have been asked to open a forum for years now, but I always tell people that I can not. Why? Well, the blog has to act as unbiased as possible. We cover forum topics, and for us to have our own forum would put us in a situation where we can not report without bias.
As many of you know, SEO Chat has shown a public display of what really goes on behind the scenes. I have been with SEO Chat before Developer Shed has joined. Since then, I, as many other mods and members, have not seen eye to eye with DevShed's practices. I will not get into the specifics, but I have just resigned from SEO Chat as a moderator. The problem is, the SEO Chat members, I don't want to leave them without giving them options. Many have fled already to Cre8asite Forums or DigitalPoint forums. But many do not know where to go, or do not feel comfortable at those forums.
That is the reason I have started our own forums at forums.seroundtable.com.
I have brought over many of the current and ex-moderators at SEO Chat. Including the forum's super moderators; Phoenix and Randfish. Also our forum's moderators; dazzlindonna, pk_synths, and sufyaaan. And guess what, we even signed on Darrin Ward, the founder of SEO Chat, to be a moderator at our forums! Not only that, DevShed's forum technical administrator, md_doc, has joined my company over a year ago and he will be running the technical components of the forums. So let me tell you, this forum will be very SEO Chat member friendly and we welcome you to join us.
How will this affect my positions at moderating at other forums? Well, I resigned from SEO Chat Forums. Secondly, I will continue to moderate at Search Engine Watch Forums and Cre8asite Forums. I have deep respect and devotion to those forums and would hate to leave them. Leaving SEO Chat gives me more time to run these forums, and with the great moderators we have on board, it will be fun.
Future of the forums? Well, I expect and already got word from other ex-moderators at SEO Chat that they will be signing on shortly. So lots of old faces will be coming on board. I am very excited about it.
Future of the blog? We will continue to widely link out and cover the forums we have. As you will see, every single page on the seroundtable.com domain name, has a link to the major forums we cover. We will continue to find the best threads at the major SEM forums and report them back to you here. We will do our best to not point more attention to the forums here, when compared to the other forums. In addition, all covered threads will link back directly to the source and not back to the forums here, unless the thread originates from our forums. I will not allow it. Call us out on it, if we do it.
I think I covered everything here, any questions? Join the thread at the new Search Engine Roundtable Forums; Welcome to the New Search Engine Roundtable Forums.