I would tend to agree that some of the best Web content out there can come from a message board. And just so long as the message being sought is on topic, it is a win - win for all involved.

During the past year, the Search Engine Watch forums have grown into a lively community, with thousands of members discussing just about everything related to search.

I asked Forums Editor Elisabeth Osmeloski to flag the most interesting and active discussions of the past year. Her choices follow.

Keywords Co-occurrence and Semantic Connectivity

This monster discussion was started by user Orion, who introduced himself as “a formal scientist, with special interest in AI applied to IR technology.” The post describes a number of concepts taken from information retrieval theory that can be applied to search engine optimization.

Despite being highly technical, the post is one of the most popular on the Search Engine Watch forums, viewed more than 57,000 times. It also spawned a lively discussion, ending up with 172 replies before being closed for further comments. [Read the rest]