Forum.ge

Platform · this deep dive is built from the official pages of the platform itself and of the tools that support it.

Overview

Forum.ge is a classic Georgian general-interest forum. In its header it calls itself "თბილისის ფორუმი" (tbilisis forumi, "Tbilisi Forum"), and at the bottom of the page it names the software: Invision Power Board (U) v1.3 Final © 2003. This is not a social network and not a feed: sections, threads, posts, moderators and warnings — an arrangement that has barely changed in two decades.

For a communications professional, one thing about the platform matters: its rules on advertising are extremely detailed and extremely strict. The forum writes about itself directly: "ფორუმი წარმოადგენს კერძო რესურსს… თქვენი აქ მონაწილეობა — არა უფლება, არამედ პრივილეგიაა" — the forum is a private resource, and your participation here is not a right but a privilege granted by the owners.

A company presence in the usual sense — with a brand page, promotional posts and links to a website — is not provided for by the rules. Below we set out exactly what the platform counts as advertising.

Who's here

The language is Georgian; the interface and the rules are written in Georgian, with some terms and section names in English. We found no English or Russian version of the site.

The platform publishes numbers right on its home page. At the moment of our check the counter showed 345 users active in the last 15 minutes: 215 guests, 90 members and 40 anonymous members. That is an instantaneous snapshot, not a daily or monthly audience; it cannot be compared with other platforms' DAU figures.

The accumulated volume is visible from the section counters. The largest on the date we checked: politics — 245,521 threads and 13,131,888 posts; the "უსათაურო aka Flame" section — 187,567 threads and 5,195,846 posts; sport — 29,041 threads and 10,184,041 posts; cars — 39,977 threads and 3,137,484 posts. The numbers belong to the forum's own counters and have accumulated over its entire lifetime.

The topical range is broad: from politics and law to cooking, programming and the "AI ლაბორატორია" (AI Laboratory) section, which on the date of our check had 27 threads and 253 posts — so new sections do get created here, but they grow slowly.

One separate detail: the buy-and-sell section has been moved outside the forum. Instead of thread and post counters, its row carries a dash and the line "Redirected Hits: 3976915" — a jump to an external resource, not a forum branch.

Getting started

Registration is free and voluntary: the form states outright that "ფორუმზე დარეგისტრირება არის აბსოლუტურად ნებაყოფლობითი და უფასო" — registration is absolutely voluntary and free. You need a pseudonym, a password and an email address; after you submit the form, an email arrives with an activation link, and without following it the account is not switched on.

Restrictions on the account name are written out separately, and some of them bear on marketing. Prohibited are tactless, obscene or offensive expressions; website addresses; deliberately misspelled spellings; meaningless combinations of letters and digits; and nicknames of 8 characters or more in which over 70% of the letters are capitals. Website addresses are also banned in the other registration fields — the only exception is the "home page" field.

The avatar is regulated too: the rules require a personal photo of the member and set the dimensions — nothing smaller than 150 × 150 pixels, and nothing larger than 320 × 500 pixels.

The rules describe no separate business account, verified brand page or other format of official company presence.

What you can publish

The forum runs on post-moderation: messages are published immediately, without prior review, and the presence of a message on the forum does not automatically mean it complies with the rules.

You may not open a new thread if the question has already been discussed, the answer is in the FAQ, the answer can be found by a search engine in 2–5 minutes, the topic does not match the section, or it is created in several sections at once (cross-posting). Separately prohibited are titles of several words in capitals, decorations of the "=--Help me!--=" kind, urgency markers, slang and spelling mistakes in the thread title.

In posts, incitement of national, racial and religious hatred, defamation and impersonation, discussion of how to obtain illegal items, and pornographic material and links to it are prohibited, as is any obscene language — including inside quotations and in attempts to get around the built-in profanity filter, which the rules call a serious violation.

There is also a non-obvious clause: greetings at the start of every message and signatures at the end are prohibited — the forum asks you not to confuse a forum post with an email. For anyone used to putting a company link in a signature, this shuts that route off immediately.

How to grow

The platform has no algorithmic feed. Growth here comes in two kinds: you climb the list of active members, or your thread stays alive on replies. The forum displays a "Today's top 10 posters" list and a "50 ყველაზე აქტიური ფორუმელი" (the 50 most active forum members) list — the only built-in showcase of authors we saw.

There is no ad account on the pages we checked: there is nowhere to buy impressions yourself, and the home page markup contains only an empty banner slot for guests. The platform describes no built-in statistics for authors.

What counts as advertising here

This is the key section for anyone coming to Forum.ge on behalf of a company. The definition is drawn broadly: advertising means publishing any information with the aim of arousing interest, creating demand or sustaining the popularity of a product, service or resource; in the general case, persistent repeated mention and praise of a resource, product or service by one member is treated as advertising, but whether a specific message counts as advertising is decided by the forum administration, not by the message's author.

What does not count as advertising: a direct link to an official site with a product description, if it serves as a source of additional information in a discussion of the relevant question. Links to unofficial resources, though — especially magazines and catalogues that duplicate information from the official site — may be treated as advertising, particularly if they contain no new information about the product.

The rules then close off the typical tactics one by one:

The only legitimate route for a message that is promotional in nature is named in the same place: if you believe it is of interest to readers, send it to a moderator — they may permit publication. That is the entire format of company presence the rules provide for: individual permission from a moderator.

Classified ads are prohibited by a separate clause — both commercial and informational: the forum states outright that it is not a classifieds board. The short version of the rules in the registration form repeats the same thing more briefly: messages containing advertising, and notices about buying, selling or exchanging items, or seeking and offering services, are prohibited.

Path to monetization

The forum does not pay authors. There is no reward programme, no share of ad revenue and no paid subscriptions to sections on the pages we checked. What is more, the platform prohibits most ways of earning through it: commercial notices, referral links with a bonus for recruitment, and promotion of your own resources all fall under the bans set out above.

There is one way to get value here, and it is not monetary: expert answers in the relevant section, where a link to a company's official site is appropriate as a source and permitted by an explicit exception in the rules.

Tools and automation

The platform describes no official programming interface. Invision Power Board version 1.3 is 2003 software; there is no mention of an API, webhooks or integrations on the pages we checked.

We found no scheduling services with confirmed support for Forum.ge. That is consistent with the rules: bulk publishing is explicitly banned here as cross-posting, and the rules call posting identical content in different threads a violation.

Among built-in tools there is a "შეატყობინე მოდერატორს" (report to a moderator) function for complaining about a post, and a warning system: the list of a member's warnings is visible in their personal "info" and is accessible only to that member and the administration.

The platform names its hosting openly: server hosting and internet connectivity are provided by CLOUD9.

Limits and rules

Access. The home page requires cookies to be enabled: without them it shows a placeholder page with the message "ქუქი-ფაილების ჩაწერა უნდა იყოს გააქტიურებული".
Registration. Free, with mandatory activation via a link from an email; website addresses in the name and profile fields are prohibited.
Advertising. Defined broadly, with the administration deciding what qualifies; only an on-topic link to an official site is allowed, plus publication with a moderator's prior consent.
Classified ads. Prohibited; the buy-and-sell section has been moved to an external resource.
Signatures. Signatures at the end of messages are prohibited.
Moderation. Post-moderation; administrators and moderators are entitled to edit and delete messages, close threads and block members.
Discussing administration actions. Prohibited in public — only in private correspondence; the rules explicitly list discussion of the forum administration's actions as off-topic.
Law. Everything that breaches the current legislation of Georgia is prohibited, as are advice and calls to breach it (clause 4.3.1).

Who it's for

It suits you if your audience is Georgian-speaking users and you are prepared to work here as an expert rather than as an advertiser: answering on the merits in the relevant section and giving a link to the official site where it is genuinely appropriate.

It suits observation: the sections on business, cars, communications and technology have accumulated millions of posts and show how Georgian consumers phrase their questions.

It does not suit direct promotion. The definition of advertising here is so broad that even a repeat mention of your own product in a positive light falls under it, and the administration decides how a message qualifies. It does not suit classified ads and sales — those are banned and moved elsewhere. And it does not suit automation: the platform has neither an API nor any supported publishing services.

Verified data

The checked data this deep dive rests on.

Languages

the interface language of the home page: en

The language is taken from the markup attribute, the versions from hreflang

source, checked 2026-07-28

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