A Chat with Aaron Wall, new owner of Threadwatch

Chat with Aaron Wall – New owner of Threadwatch.org

Threadwatch has been a staple daily (hourly) news read for me and thousands of other SEO’s since it started. In case you haven’t heard, Nick Wilson just sold the Threadwatch to Aaron Wall (of SEO Book fame). (SEO Book has been another daily (hourly read) to keep up on news in the world of SEO.

Aaron not only owns www.seobook.com (Alexa rank of 9,052), and www.search-marketing.info (Alexa rank of 36,662), www.linkhounds.com (Alexa rank of 62,704), www.directoryarchives.com (Alexa rank of 62,895), www.blackhatseo.com, www.myriadsearch.com, and a slew of other sites. And now he adds www.threadwatch.org (Alexa rank of 6277) to his list of properties.

I asked Aaron if I could interview him with a few questions to publish and here’s our chat:

webuildpages: I just saw on your blog that you bought threadwatch.org – how did this come about?
Aaron Wall: he wanted to sell it to work on performancing
webuildpages: what are your plans for threadwatch?
Aaron Wall: you know to be honest I am not really sure
Aaron Wall: Nick posted a farewell thread on Threadwatch
Aaron Wall: in that I stated that the site was my homepage for most of the last year
Aaron Wall: I was hoping I could help keep it that way
webuildpages: any changes planned right now?
Aaron Wall: not really
Aaron Wall: i just need to figure out how to deal with the overlap of topics
Aaron Wall: and workload
Aaron Wall: may eventually have to hire on an editor for one site or the other… but some of the current editors at TW do a great job already
webuildpages: any plans to change the advertising on threadwatch?
Aaron Wall: most likely it will be more like SEW
Aaron Wall: not as high of rates due to lower reach
Aaron Wall: obviously
webuildpages: We all know you run SEOBook.com, and you give me a list of other sites that you run?
Aaron Wall: search marketing info (predicesor to seobook)
Aaron Wall: black hat seo <– tounge in cheek site about black hat seo
Aaron Wall: directory archives…. similar to directory pages
Aaron Wall: linkhounds
Aaron Wall: myriad search
Aaron Wall: think thats about it
Aaron Wall: i have a few others but none that I have marketed much
webuildpages: You’re a solo act right? how do you manage to manage all of these?
Aaron Wall: you know i just dont know
Aaron Wall: hehehe
webuildpages: do you still plan on updating seobook.com as much, or do you see moving to threadwatch, or moving more to seobook?
Aaron Wall: thinking more toward TW
Aaron Wall: but uncertain to be honest
webuildpages: now to jump to a different topic, what’s the latest on the lawsuit?
Aaron Wall: Still pending / ongoing without any response from Traffic Power.
webuildpages: what’s pending?
webuildpages: where’s it at? (more details?)
Aaron Wall: like it has not been read by the judge
Aaron Wall: traffic power were supposed to answer about a month ago and never did
webuildpages: do you have any plans of hiring a team to help manage your sites?
Aaron Wall: uncertain of what I want to do
Aaron Wall: eventually I will have to partner on some stuff
Aaron Wall: I already have partners on some sites
Aaron Wall: recently also launching another network, etc
webuildpages: what’s this about a network?
Aaron Wall: oh I think I want to start a blog network
Aaron Wall: still early stages though
Aaron Wall: so uncertain how well it will pan out, etc.
webuildpages: can you tell me a little about your involvement in some of the seo forums out there. As I recall, you’re a mod of a few as well?
Aaron Wall: yeah
Aaron Wall: have sorta dropped off on that though
Aaron Wall: I forgot to mention another site
Aaron Wall: a friend recently sold me a forum tracking site
Aaron Wall: www.seobytes.com
Aaron Wall: I still love SearchGuild when I have time to go
Aaron Wall: and sometimes visit at SEW forums and a few of the others
webuildpages: where do you see yourself and your projects in 2 years?
Aaron Wall: uncertain to be honest
Aaron Wall: I dont think as far ahead as I should to be honest
webuildpages: how’s the actual book (SEO Book) doing? …must be doing pretty decent to be able to buy threadwatch, etc..any comments there?
Aaron Wall: well believe it or not
Aaron Wall: much of the money to buy TW was from Google stock
webuildpages: HA!
Aaron Wall: I bought some the opening day and a bit more
Aaron Wall: sold it all to get TW
webuildpages: Nice!
Aaron Wall: yeah
Aaron Wall: thousands more of profit to claim … but also thousands more of expenses
webuildpages: I know from chatting with you on weekends and late at night that you always seem to be online. Do you ever stop? If so, what do you do when you’re not online?
Aaron Wall: hehehe
Aaron Wall: the answer is prettymuch no
Aaron Wall: but I like reading
Aaron Wall: once every 3 months or so I end up playing a video game for a few days
Aaron Wall: go to conferences
Aaron Wall: exercise but not enough
Aaron Wall: 🙂
webuildpages: Can you tell me a little history of where you’ve been, and how you got to where you are today?
Aaron Wall: i went to high school
Aaron Wall: graduated at age of 17
Aaron Wall: and joined the navy at the age of 17
Aaron Wall: I became a nuclear reactor operator and did not like it much
Aaron Wall: after 5.5 years in to a 6 yr contract I got kicked out.
Aaron Wall: made a rant website a little under 3 yrs ago
Aaron Wall: started learning seo and marketing stuff
Aaron Wall: reading a bunch
Aaron Wall: and i guess here i am a few years and few clients later
Aaron Wall: a few years, a few domains, and a few clients later
webuildpages: any advice to people starting in SEO?
Aaron Wall: dont look at the math stuff so much as look at how people interact
webuildpages: Thanks for doing my first "interview", Congrats on Threadwatch!