During our 6th year anniversary this month, Cre8asiteforums has been out getting to know persons of interest in the industries we cover and from our forums membership. Some people stand out at Cre8asiteforums for their loyalty and dedication to helping others. One such person is Yura Filimonov.

We’d like to introduce him to you:

Forum questions

1. If you can remember, how did you first learn about Cre8asiteforums?

I don’t exactly recall the moment, but I do know I’ve been searching for answers on some problem (possibly, hyphens vs underscores) and either arrived to the forums from Google or from another forum or article (there were few blogs at the time, ‘04), where the forums were mentioned.

2. Do you participate in other forums?

The only other forums I participate are SEO Refugee Forums. They have a vibrant community of professionals (a self-taught expert on local promotion among them) with an easy-going attitude, so it’s fun to hang around there. It doesn’t have many new members, so signal to noise ratio is pretty high and there aren’t many new discussions to follow (which is good, if you have work to do or need to ask a question).

3. Do you think forums are useful in your work or personal life? If so, how?

Cre8asite Forums is what actually taught me a lot of things about how the search engines work, how websites are and should be built and promoted. I have to say that the forums was the starting point of my learning process, which has allowed me to become the professional I am today (I’ve read all the posts in subforums that interested me most, when I started). It was a habit to start reading at the Cre8asite forums and to jump to articles/posts that Bill (bragadocchio) linked to and then jumping to links from those articles and again and again.

At the moment, the forums allow me to stay up to date with most important online quirks and discuss them, as it is nice to stay in a quiet place away from bait, controversies and such.

I can’t say that my personal life is affected. I have only met one member in real life and he is the local person I met elsewhere and recommended him the forums :)

4. Please name an example of something Cre8asiteforums helped you with.

Aside from hyphens and underscores, possibly the biggest help was in the form of confidence that I can build sites for humans, not the search engines. Back in ‘04 the concept wasn’t very well formed (at least in my head), so it was of great help. I’d like to thank Ammon Johns for this, because he had always shown simple, but effective ways to get the most results with the most human-focused approach possible.

5. What are your favorite topics covered at Cre8asiteforums?

It is not just the topics, but the fact that several expert people share different point of view on a topic. This is what allows a member to see the full picture and make an informed decision. Sometimes, the topic starter gets a piece of advice to fix a problem he didn’t ask about.

If you insist, however, it will probably be easy ways to substantially make sites easier to use (and more effective at the same time) and various ways of online promotion. The former allows one to increase conversions immensely, the latter is not so exciting, but a very useful topic for a newcomer like me (yeah, I am still learning, as I didn’t have specialized marketing education).

6. Who is your favorite moderator(s)?

Each moderator/admin has his own virtues.

Ammon Johns (Black_Knight) is one of the most notable people on the forums, offering effective and at the same time “But it’s obvious! I could’ve done it!” advice and has played a role in making this place my home (at least in the first several years of my online activity). Garrick Saito (Respree) often offers another perspective from a business owner about taking care of the customers and keeping your back-end safe.

Ron Carnell has plenty of experience and brings unthought of aspects of a topic to threads, often sprinkling them with humor.

Other mods definitely bring spice to the forums, with Kim (cre8pc) successfully managing to bring up important usability topics and get out of the way of other mods and posters, for example.

7. Feel free to tell us about yourself, your work, and your passions.

As most members know, I live in Russia (the hardest place to get to the conferences from). I like to run, eat vegan food, enjoy outdoors, gardening and woodwork in my summer house (a house with ~700 sq. y. of land: a dacha, as they call it here).

I work in-house as (currently) the one managing an online presence for a company, which includes all kinds of work. The company enables businesses to work smarter using custom Lotus Notes or .NET applications.

I prefer working inhouse to running my own online business, because it isn’t that hectic and allows me to think about other things in my life. Besides, not having a side project allows me to bring energy and inspiration to work, which makes it better.

FUN!

1. How many towns have you lived in?

I’ve always lived in Novosibirsk.

Technically, it’s all called Novosibirsk, but we do have a science center called Academgorodok, where more than 40 research institutes are situated. That’s where I have been living mostly, but I did live in the city for a couple of years.

2. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?

I don’t want to be a crayon, so others could spend me however they wanted. Sorry. Unless you mean a self-controlled crayon, then I’d probably be a sky blue one.

3. What did you want to be when you were little?

I wanted to be many things, but probably a bus driver, a cosmonaut and maybe something else. Certainly not an Internet marketer.

4. Are you a morning person or a night person?

I’m a hardcore morning person. Partly because I need to do 1-3hr runs before work, partly because I really enjoy the morning spirit (did you ever walk/run on a pathway, covered with snow, and you were the first human to leave tracks on it?).

5. Where would you retire to?

A log house somewhere far, far away from the civilization, possibly closer to the north (I like winter).

Yura Filimonov

Web Creator

Effectize