'Net Features : forum search

Twing: So Long, It's Been Good To Know You

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:23:00 GMT

My absolute favorite forum search tool Twing.com is apparently no longer active. Website Magazine has covered Twing several times in the past, and it was one of the best tools I had come across for Web professionals. It's a sad day in the world of forum search.

Twing was a very useful tool for following the conversation about your industry and your own brand. As such, the owners should not have any problem finding a buyer for the technology itself, which is as solid as solid gets. Twing allowed users to search by keyword, search particular forums, exclude terms, search by media and language among other filtering tools. Users were also able to submit their own forums to the Twing directory to generate traffic and become part of the Twing community, which is why it will probably get snapped up pretty quickly. It would be a shame otherwise.

If you know of another forum search we can add to our master list of forum search resources, please don't hesitate to let us know. Just send an email to editors@websitemagazine.com.

Google Forum Search Enhanced

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 15:50:00 GMT

A few weeks ago we published a list of four forum search resources. That post was well received, perhaps because leveraging forums for building relationships and getting the word out about your product or service are two of the best ways to achieve website success. The four services mentioned however must have had no idea that Google liked their sites (or saw that much value) as much as they do, as Google Groups users are now able to search for information not just from Google Groups, but from forums across the Internet.

Google is still showing Google Groups which match the query at the top of the return list (see image below), but users are able to find a lot more indexed content than other smaller providers like Omgili, Twing and others provide. One of the downsides of the feature addition is that, unlike those forum search offerings mentioned previously, users are unable to differentiate between individual posts and forums. It does shows how many posts are in each thread and when the last post occured, but it would be a great addition to be able to search only for forums, or only for posts.

Resources For Building Links Through Forums

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:34:00 GMT

Posting on forums is one of the best ways to drive traffic to your websites. The ability to insert signatures in posts, links to specific web pages and network and communicate with those that might be interested in your products and services is well worth the investment of time it requires. But with thousands of forums, discussion boards and mailing lists to get through, you need the right tools for the job. Here are a few essential resources for finding opportunities to build links on forums.

Read Four Essential Resources For Building Links Through Forums

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