Ilya, thanks for pointing out where I wasn't being clear.
I didn't mean direct monetization ie ads on the forum.
Sorry if it came across as criticism. It is meant as a complement on Steve's skills, and trying to get an accurate model of how it all works.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina  Overall these forums don't have a major impact on traffic or income compared to the blog, but they are at least profitable, and they seem to do better each month as the archives continue to grow. |
Steve, not a major impact on traffic? That really surprises me.
I would have thought there is immense value in a forum - the combination of repeat visitors, Alexa rankings increases, automatic/natural link generation, SEO keywords, etc, let alone brand name and position in the market (Hard to for competitors to set up an forum in a short space of time.)
Sure they might be hard to dissect out from amongst all the rest of the stats, but do you have a way of measuring forum v blog on factors that aren't Adwords clicks.