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Reddit feels different these days. It has changed with more ads and new restrictions. I miss the vibe of old-school forums. If you’re craving the golden days of niche forums, ForumScout can help.
How ForumScout Works
ForumScout is a search engine for forums, digging up posts from platforms an everyday Google search can ignore. Enter a keyword like “indie games,” and the social listening tool scans multiple forums for the latest discussions.
ForumScout scans thousands of forums in seconds. It still trawls Reddit but also brings up other discussions happening across the web. Then, you can use the search filters to display results by time, country, or a specific domain.
ForumScout can also track live mentions of specific keywords across various online forums. Set up “Scouts” for real-time tracking. Scouts are automated alerts that run hourly. ForumScout notifies you via email or the dashboard when new posts match your keywords. Use these notifications to jump into conversations early.
Limit a search to a specific country to discover regional communities.
Is ForumScout Free?
ForumScout has a generous free plan that includes tracking up to 100 mentions per month. You can set up as many scouts as you want and track up to 10 keywords/phrases. All results are stored on the site for 14 days.
ForumScout as a Niche Search Engine
Reddit can be a noisy place drowned by generic content (and AI bot replies). ForumScout can uncover any forum indexed by Google. So, the chances of uncovering hidden gems are high. Also, I like that ForumScout supports advanced search operators like Google’s.
I use it to find obscure communities around my hobbies. Scouts and their alerts help me jump into conversations as early as possible. It’s a nice option to break away from the usual platforms and have more direct chats around shared interests. For example, I use ForumScout to find niche online reading book groups that better align with what I want to read—all from a single search!
As far as I can tell, ForumScout brings up all kinds of results without bias. This could be useful for anyone looking beyond the popular first-page results on Google. For digital marketers, it can work as a “scout” for reputation management.
As artificial intelligence rolls on, we need community discussions. Old-fashioned forums still thrive. So, more niche search engines that slacken Google’s grip on our online habits are welcome.
