Aaron Wall has decided to close down the search engine marketing coverage site Threadwatch.

Pandia recommended Threadwatch as one of six “must see” search engine headline aggregator sitess as late as last week.

Aaron mentions several reasons for making this decision:

• It has been difficult to find the right balance between controversial “edginess” and serious search engine news coverage.
• Some writers have betrayed his trust by using Threadwatch to spam Digg.
• Many of his writers have started their own blogs that require their attention.
• The recent proliferation of new search engine marketing blogs has made it very difficult to cover the whole field.
• Automated community driven news sites have lessened the need for Threadwatch.

He concludes with the following reflection:

“Part of why I bought this site was because I felt there was a lot I could learn from the conversation that takes place here. I didn’t mind the crassness or other stuff here as long as I felt I was learning, but as the best parts of the SEO market got more spread out on personal blogs and general crankiness of Threadwatch made some of the best members leave, the signal to noise ratio here suffered. Unfortunately I was not a strong enough leader to make it work and/or my priorities were elsewhere.”

We are sad to see Threadwatch go, but fortunately you will find many of its writers online — taking part in forums (like RC Jordan and NFFC) or writing their own blogs (like Dave Naylor, Jenstar and Graywolf).

And yes, Aaron has his own blog over at SEO Book.

See also: Threadwatch Shuts Down (Web Pro News)