Thread: The Complete Story Behind the Fall of SEOChat

The Complete Story Behind the Fall of SEOChat is a great blog post by yfs1 (Jason) on how the once-great SEO forum was mismanaged into becoming a massive failure.

If you look at forums.seochat.com today, you will see this message at the bottom of the main forum page: "Most users ever online was 979, February 1st, 2007 at 07:00 AM."

You will also see that this once huge forum now has an Alexa rating very close to the "one week average" Alexa rating of our own two-week old forum.

There are several lessons to be learned from yfs1's analysis of SEOChat's experience.

I believe that the main lesson is this: Listen to your community members. Don't quash criticism -- beg for it. Member feedback is the #1 method for learning how to improve and grow.

The owners at SEOChat deserved their fate.

Yeah, I remember the 'ol days when SEOChat was doing pretty good.

Their fall is somewhat similar to digitalpoint's.

Jason is a smart fellow, I haven't seen him for a while

yeh, nice read..
hope that don't happen with NB

Originally Posted by MeetHere

yeh, nice read..
hope that don't happen with NB

We're not big enough for that to happen to us

Originally Posted by DomainMagnate

Jason is a smart fellow, I haven't seen him for a while

I agree. He's super busy with his current project. I hope he finds time to visit the forums again.

Originally Posted by Ash

We're not big enough for that to happen to us

h0h0h0h00h0h0h0h0h0h0

We will be big enough for it to happen to us, but hopefully we don't be dumb enough for it to happen to us.

I have never seen a once so great forum turn into such a mess. Unbelievable that the new owners couldn't recognize just what a resource they have owned.

Originally Posted by Ash

Yeah, I remember the 'ol days when SEOChat was doing pretty good.

Their fall is somewhat similar to digitalpoint's.

Dp´s busier than ever. But quality wise it has fallen. You cannot have a serious conversation in there, it goes under amongst posts by people just posting to post, flame or sell you something-.
The market place there however is what people come for. For different reasons, to buy sites, links, sell sites and links, scam etc.
Question is always what exactly the community is looking for.
And right now I believe that there is a strong need for a place for those who are interested in sharing ideas, to have that.

Originally Posted by firetown

The market place there however is what people come for. For different reasons, to buy sites, links, sell sites and links, scam etc.

That's an interesting market study.

Much like eBay, the DP marketplace is big because it is big.

Sellers want to go to where the buyers are and buyers want to go to where the sellers are.

I think we could make a big splash in that niche with just the right contest. I'm not exactly sure what that contest would be, but I do have a few ideas.

Hi Will

What do you think about DP...do you think they will also fail like seochat,as they recently banned some good members as well!!