Thin Content - Duplicate Content & SEO On Forums in 2021

[ProWeb]

Where are all you guys at these days with your thoughts, concerns, and actions relative to thin & duplicate content in forums and UGC (user gen content)?

There seem to be two schools of thought:

• More content is always better. There may be some long-tail stuff that could be valuable. Google will sort it all out in the end.
• Google does an OK job, but they aren't perfect. They have limited crawl budget, they don't like thing or duplicate content, and they want sites to have fewer "better" content items than more "mixed-quality" items.

Some forum owners will "no-index" thin content automatically. Some may try to do the same with duplicate content.

What do the "experts" say?

... or are all the experts only familiar with blogs and not forums?

What's your perspective / process on thin & duplicate UGC?

 

[Pete]

Last I checked, Google deemed all UGC to be low quality in ever since Penguin update 4.0 in 2016 and I’ve yet to see that much evidence of backtracking on that, but my corner of the web is smaller than it used to be so maybe my information is off.

Though there is evidence that following the mobile-friendly guidance of Lighthouse gets you back in better graces, something most forums are a bit rubbish at doing.

 

[vbgamer45]

Lighthouse thanks for reminder built into Chrome. I find it funny some of the issues are related to google's own services such as ad networks for not following their best practices according to lighthouse.

 

[DigNap15]

I dont rely on Google to get any new members.
They activley downgrade my forum in their search results
And they do not rate news or politcs content well either
And they actively hide any discusssion on Corona Virus and Climate Change and the US electin fraud.
My forum welcomes all comments on such subjects.
So I defund Google and Youtube

Many of my new members seem to come from word of mouth

Also the term forum is now very out of date and old fashioned.
Anynone under the age of 50 has no idea what a forum is
It is also confused with a meeting eg a medical forum.

 

[Pete]

Anynone under the age of 50 has no idea what a forum is

I guess I don't exist seeing that I'm nearly 40, nor do all the people I talk to on forums that are in their 20s and 30s.

Would agree with you that the term forum is now old-fashioned, such that a lot of sites and brands (correctly) realised that calling something a 'forum' was an outdated look and instead tend to brand it as 'community'. A term that doesn't come with a heap of baggage or weird expectations.

 

[Oh!]

I am increasingly drawn to the word 'group' as an alterative to 'forum'. And only in particular contexts do I use the even more old fashioned, 'bulletin board'.

 

[Abizaga]

I am increasingly drawn to the word 'group' as an alterative to 'forum'. And only in particular contexts do I use the even more old fashioned, 'bulletin board'.

I just use the term 'community' myself.

 

[Oh!]

And while we on the subject of nomenclatures: thread or topic (or something else)?

 

[Abizaga]

And while we on the subject of nomenclatures: thread or topic (or something else)?

Either "thread" or "discussion" for me.

 

[Impaler]

Only topic for me )

 

[Pete]

Group implies something different to community, specifically a niche or intentional subset, especially as in a community site, there are often multiple roles that are grouped together. While the nomenclature is trending towards 'role', 'group' is still quite common.

As for thread vs topic, thread seems to keep sticking around even though the classical 'threaded view' has long since gone away in most platforms.