Now there are media executives who are complaining bitterly about the way in which Google ranks sites and they feel that it is not a fair system. One does naturally have to remember that this is a primarily capitalist society and Google is a commercial concern, naturally it is going to promote those that pay it to do so. For this reason Google does put some media companies before others – they are generally referred to as trusted partners and there are a number of ways in which Google puts them ahead of the competition.  The search giant weights their domain higher than others, features their recent news in its News section and then also if one conducted a search and finally there is better coverage given to content that provides information and is not merely of a commercial nature.

This of course means that those in the media industry that are effectively not “in favour” with the search giant are at a disadvantage. But instead of sitting back on their heels and whining, perhaps they should view this situation as a challenging opportunity and rise up to take advantage of something that could change the way in which they produce their work and thereby generate revenue.

The simple fact is that there is a lot of nonsense on the web today and content that is well written is hard to find. Perhaps one of the easiest ways in which to determine whether content is good or not is to see the search ranking that the original article gets as opposed to a rewritten piece. If the rewrite scores higher, there is clearly something wrong with either the way in which the original was composed.

Ensuring that one has the right business model for the internet is another challenge that many companies face. Even if they were to get higher ratings from Google the fact remains that they are not adaptable enough for the dynamic nature of the internet. It is very important that media and marketing companies are flexible in their approach to the online medium. They cannot simply hope that a good article will mean they get fantastic coverage. Optimisation is not only about key words, it is about content that is linkworthy, interesting and relevant. It is only if content can fulfill these criteria that it can be considered to be of sufficient quality.

I am providing a complete list containing SEO Forums and would like you to comment upon adding them, if any, to the prescribed list.UPDATE: The SEO Training Program we have is strengthened by the addition of private and exclusive SEO Community forum on popular demand.

Meta Information on Forum: Skimming out the right stuff from the innumerable SEO Forums, like Thread Watch, which acts as a blog as well as forum, we have put everything inside.  In fact Thread Watch was created to help all levels of SEO professionals and contains enjoyable gossip type entries.

A first rated SEO Forum should be a place to pour out opinions on anything, even if the technique of that SEO is against the wishes of Search Engines, so far as it makes the right noise. With this perspective the following Top Rated SEO Forums are identified:

a) Search Guild : SEO Forums by Chris Ridings – Open and forthright views from a community angle in spite of slow activity, comparatively at summer.

b) V7N Web Dev Community: SEO Forum by John Scott – Challenging some “norms” with info at times going against the core.

c) Search Engine Watch Forums: A Forum fancied by even experienced SEOs hanging out in new Forum and breaking news items are aplenty.

d) Digital Points: Fast grown up new comer and active, innovative features combined with hands off policy socially and the SEO tools are also cool.

e) SEO Guy Forums: Springing up new from SEO Chat, SEO Guy Forums has many best members from the old hat with a good start.

Here are SEO Forums, which are largest in the sense, the contents and volume of information are immense. Large SEO forums often getting the community feel missing, excepting Digital Point, scaling out an amazingly good sense community feel of a forum:

Digital Point: Fast grown up new comer and active, innovative features combined with hands off policy socially and the SEO tools are also cool.
Jimworld:  Mainly Webmaster Forums:  Created by Jim Wilson as the first and popular SEO Forum has passed its glorious days.
Site Point Forums: Webmaster (Coding) Forums – Unlike many others driven by marketing angle this Forum focuses more on site development and coding.
SEO Chat: Darrin Wood started it at the time when SearchGuild was started and sold it to DevShed network’s owner. The heavy advertising onsite is working against it (prescription drugs buying for example) coupled with lot of posts in the “me too” type makes many well-versed SEOs flinching upon it.
Webmaster World:  Bret Tabke as well as other webmasters created it for beating Jimworld. Though successful in this, the forum has lost many best members, owing to strict guidelines for posting, who are posting presently at “Search Engine – Watch Forums”. This is the largest SEO Forum (Digital Point beating in daily posts) currently perhaps.

Then there are Big SEO Forums as listed below:

Abakus Forums – SEO Forums: Small forums but with German Version larger in size. Moderated by Webby – along with a large number of SEO forums.
Anthony Parsons SEO Forum: Anthony Parsons has made many a thoughtful pots in various SEO forums, but according to me, he has not promoted his own forum much.
AOSEP – small and new SEO forum by Searchguild moderators.
Bank of Gonzo’s Webmasters Forums: WebProWorld lead posters created this as their own and interesting pieces of news have been dug up by Dodger.
Cre8asite Forums:  In business and marketing posts it excels from usability and design with posts of experience by Peter D and Black Knight as also bragadocchio.
Digital Point Forums – by Shawn Hogan and is mid-sized. This Forum seems to be liberal as people from similar SEO forums having sent out of them learn to behave here. SEO tools are coolest.
Dirson Google Foro – Spanish forums mostly about Google.
Foro Buscadores – SEO forums of Spanish origin
Forums Abondance – Webmaster forums – French
Geeks on Steoroids – Newer Webmaster & SEO forums for discussions
Highrankings SEO Forums – A conservative “White Hat” forum by Jill Whalen – branded as “the SEO Copywriter”. Primarily inexperienced persons unfamiliar to SEO gear this up, but there seems to be experienced SEOs too.
HTML it : Webmaster forums of Italian origin
Ihelp You Forums: SEO forums of mid-size by Doug Heil, a self-nominated and vehement crusader to fight search engines and allied spam. Strongly worded opinions with quick judgments are his strength. About Dough Heil’s SPAM comes to my mind when I was writing gossip posts in ThreadWatch.
Jimworld: A large and old forum, visited by me rarely since I think it is past its old prime.
LilEngine Forums: SEO forums of small size with not much of activity now. I used to delete link drops in great numbers, by many people when I started moderating there.
Ozzu – webmaster forums of medium size, with a cool design and decent ratio of signal-to-noise, though I do not post there frequently.
Resource Zone : Open Directory Project (DMOZ) for interfacing by public with editors. Webmaster conflicts are usual with some great editors and some judgmental and mean.  What a best editor and worst editor can offer – you can see there.
Search Engine Watch Forums: My favorite and new SEO forum having long time experienced SEOs.
SEO Blackhat Forum – SEO technique is aggressive and it is paid forum
SEO Chat – By tons of link drops drowning signals and heavy advertising, many SEOs are not fond of these large SEO forums.
SEO-Forums.com – New and small SEO forums by James Mann. Other than that it is new and small, I can not give any review for lack of visiting.
SEO Guy Forums: Springing up new from SEO Chat, SEO Guy Forums has many best members from the old hat with a good start.
SEO Debat – SEO Forums of Danish origin
SEO Place – New SEO forum by Derek Chew, who runs also Organic Rankings.
SEO Project – small and newer SEO forum
SEO Refugee – Once SEO Chat got imploded, this forum sprang up independently
SEO Town – Darin Ward started this small newer SEO Forum afresh after the non-competing specific clause for 1 year by SEO Chat lapsed, but yet to pick up steam.
SEO Talk –Webmaster Talk people created this smaller and newer SEO forum
SEO Zip – I help Nandini Maheswari moderate this new SEO forums
Search Guild – This mid-sized Chris Riding SEO forum is my favorite and has good community sense and ratio for signal-to-noise.
Search This Forums – webmaster forums of small nature
SitePoint Forums – Rather than marketing, this site is focusing primarily on web development as webmaster coding forums.
Spider Food Forums – SEO forums of J.K. Bowman
Suchmaschinen Community – SEO forums of German origin.
Syndk8 – SEO forums of black hat
Top25Web – These SEO forums, small and geared primarily towards persons new to the SEO by Anthony Ettinger
VN7 Web Dev Community – SEO forums of mid-size by John Scott, who is blunt but meaning well. Frequently I post at this forum
Web Inspect Forums – newer and smaller Forums
Webmaster World – Search Engine Watch forums have penetrated into the user base, due to strict policies for posting in this large webmaster forums.
Web Pro World – This SEO forum of mid-size is focused towards new people to SEO forums
Webmaster Home Page – webmaster forums of German origin.
Webmaster Talk – webmaster forums focusing on creating, coding, promoting and hosting sites
Xeoweb SEO Foro – SEO forums of Spanish origin
Then about the News Groups we have: Google Group: Google Support; and Google Groups for Search Engines :   These Newsgroups have admirable stuff inside them. But they lack in moderation and thereby lead to misinformation largely. Google Groups 2 powered newer News Group, moderated by author Andrew Goodman can be found here.

He is writing in Traffick.com and is respected as among the leading Google Adwords gurus. Before I-lists going away, he was doing the moderator job of I-Search online list. Many sophisticated and seasoned marketers made posts of higger level in his newsgroup.

LED Digest – one of original exclusive email discussion lists. Issues of webmaster related, Internet marketing are also discussed along SEO.

Forum Article of mine about Old SEO – contains reviews about SEO forums near about 2003 end. Kindly note the info can be outdated slightly though, as I have been trained a bit more and change of things have occurred in last year. Rather than the info of that article, here on this particular page the information given is LOT MORE new and up-to-date.