Trouble at Webmaster World

The Webmaster World webmaster and search engine marketing discussion forum is loosing moderators.

(December 6 2004) Webmaster World is probably the most extensive and informative webmaster discussion forum on the Web. It is definitely number one as regards information on search engines and search engine marketing. The number of knowledgeable moderators and members is impressive, and many of the interventions are examples of high quality journalism.

Founder Brett Tabke deserves credit for all the work he has put into WMW, and for turning the forum into one of the most visited marketing sites on the Web.

But there is something strange going on at Webmaster World at the moment. The forum is bleeding moderators.

The forum lost four of them during the last week, and more have been leaving during the last couple of months. The importance of competent and hard working moderators cannot be underestimated, and the warning bells should be ringing when so many of them decide to leave at the same time.

Pandia is not sure why this is happening right now, but one reason could be internal disagreement regarding the future development of the Webmaster World site and the Webmaster World conferences. The Webmaster World conferences have for instance changed from being informal "pub conferences" to more large scale events, and not all WMWers have been happy about that.

Webmaster World was founded by disgruntled moderators from Jim's Search Engine Forums. Could the same happen again?

We doubt it. After all, most of the moderators have decided to stay. Brett Tabke is still there, providing valuable input and guidance.

Nevertheless, many of the alternative search engine discussion forums are bound to benefit from the influx of ex-WMW moderators. After all, these are not the kind of people that are able to stay quiet for prolonged periods of time -- we hope. Some of them have also promised to go on posting at Webmaster World.

More search engine news...