Is it a good or bad idea (in Google's eyes) to add a forum to my website?

[bizzer]

I have an active website with many users adding dozens of comments on the many pages of the site daily.  I'm am wondering if it would be good for the overall ranking strength of the site if I were to add a forum to it (in a subdirectory, like forum.mysite.com).

On one hand, I can see the forum posts as thin content, which Google wouldn't care for. On the other hand, I see the additional user engagement on the site, which I think Google would like.

I know the benefits it can have to the users, but for this question, all I want to know is if this would be seen by Google as a plus or a minus for my site, assuming the forum succeeded in becoming popular. I don't want to do anything that will diminish the value of my site in Google's eyes.

Thank you.

[ColeLusby]

Would the user benefit from the forum? If yes, then I would proceed with the forum (create no follows for all comments).

Google cares about the user. Thus, if the forum benefits the user, then yes.

It appears you're keeping in mind the user and I applaud you. It could be example.com/forum (with sub categories following forum to clearly indicate this is a FORUM). We aren't trying to manipulate (create no follows as mentioned above).

I think this would be good for your site, assuming you have good engagement.

[garrettkite]

I agree with Cole on this one. If the forum has a legitimate purpose on your site and will benefit the user, then go for it. Google definitely shouldn't punish you for creating the forum, again assuming that the forum isn't just built to act as a home to link spam, and I would expect it to have a positive SEO impact on the site as a whole.

The URL structure of site.com/forum/topic should be beneficially as well. Hope that helps!

[bizzer]

Thanks for the opinions.  I hate how the Fear of Google makes me have to potentially do or not do things that I think are to the benefit of users.

By the way, since forums are such a pain to manage, the forum I'm thinking of using is the new Discourse that a lot of large companies (like Dropbox, for example) are using. Because it runs on an complex environment I don't want to host personally, I'd host it at somewhere like DiscourseHosting.com (too expensive at Discourse' own hosting since they are just going after big sites). for something like eighty bucks a month.

Technical question: Because it's going to be hosted elsewhere from my own server, I need to map it to a subdirectory, forum.mysite.com, rather than mysite.com/forum (live example: http://bbs.boingboing.net/).  There's not disadvantage to this is there?  I have not heard of one.

Also, I'd be interested in any options in this choice of forum platform, in case anyone has ever used it, or is interested in checking it out. It works differently than the usual forums.