WebmasterWorld Sold To Jim Boykin’s Internet Marketing Ninjas

One of the more popular Webmaster and SEO forums, WebmasterWorld, has been sold today to Jim Boykin’s Internet Marketing Ninjas.

Jim Boykin has been acquiring several forums this year, including all of the Developer Shed network including SEO Chat forums and Cre8asite Forums from Kim Krause Berg.

Cre8asite Forums has been around since 1998 as a modest sized forum but WebmasterWorld has been around since 1999 as one of the larger webmaster focused forums on the internet. Many forums have come and gone over the years but those two remained live and vibrant.

I spoke with Brett Tabke, the founder of WebmasterWorld, about selling his baby to Internet Marketing Ninjas, and he told me the primary reason is he wants to focus on building and improving his conference, PubCon. In fact, the official announcement was made during this morning’s keynote at PubCon. There’s also an announcement up at the Pubcon site.

Brett also explained that the time and investment needed to take WebmasterWorld to the next level was something he wasn’t necessarily interested in undertaking. Brett seemed tired and a bit worn out from running the forums. At least operationally, he won’t have to worry if the server is up and running, if someone is spamming the forum or if there is a coding issue.

Brett is staying on as an administrator for the time being and does plan on continuing to participate in the forums. He shares a bit on this in this WebmasterWorld post and promises a more personal post to come.

Nothing is changing today with WebmasterWorld outside of the ownership. The forum software is remaining, no new ads or going up, as far as I know, no moderators or administrators are leaving because of the news.

Jim Boykin told me he is buying these communities to give back to the community. He told me he has a successful business, and he learned so much from these forums and this is his way to say thank you. More of his rational on buying these forums on his blog.

The same was with the Cre8asite Forums takeover, and I believe the Developer Shed takeover. Kim is still running Cre8asite forums but is now employed by Internet Marketing Ninjas. I spoke with Kim and she is happier than ever. I know Internet Marketing Ninjas hired the orignal founder of SEO Chat, Darrin Ward, to come back to SEO Chat and lead that forum. Darrin sold the forum years ago to Developer Shed, so it has come full circle for him.

What is next for Brett Tabke, the founder of WebmasterWorld? Well, he is planning a long vacation in Hawaii, something he has never really done since founding WebmasterWorld.

Congrats to Internet Marketing Ninjas, WebmasterWorld, Cre8asite & Developer Shed and all those involved in those communities.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.