Newsgroup Promotion

Several years ago, before the age of "newsgroup pollution", newsgroups were an excellent place to announce a site. A webmaster could post a brief description on a newsgroup about a site that would legitimately help the readers of that newsgroup, and traffic would go up noticeably for a few days. Now many newsgroups are so cluttered with irrelevant junk that this technique does not work at all. For example, look at this not-unusual listing from the alt.teen newsgroup:

This is a good example of bad netiquette, and it really turns people off to newsgroup advertising in general.

There are three keys to announcing on newsgroups:

Be normal. You, as a reader of a newsgroup, have a right to post to the group just like anyone else. Enter a normal posting, with a subject that is innocuous. Do not use all caps, for example. You want people to read your posting like they would any other.
Target your newsgroups carefully. Pick the newsgroup that is exactly tuned to your message. You should take the time to read and participate in the group before posting.
Wait a sufficient period of time before reposting. A month is typical. Certain newsgroups have very religious followers, and if they find that you are being obnoxious, they will let you know in no uncertain terms.

The key to newsgroup postings is to be polite about it, and be natural. If you carefully read the normal flow of postings to a group relevant to your web site, you will often find opportunites to mention your site in normal replies. If you don't do that too often, you are actually providing a useful service rather than being a pest.

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