Considering that the SDMB is blocked by most search engines, how do new members find out about it? Is mostly through the main SDMB page and word-of-mouth?
I found it through some of the Straight Dope columns, which link to the Straight Dope home page, which in turn links to the SDMB. Pretty easy, really, to become addicted.
Also mainly through people linking to this place on other messageboards, that’s how I came to sdmb, when somebody posted a link to the horror of the blimp post.
Tell me about it. I’ve been cold-turkey for close to a year and a half now. One little backslide, and now I’m testposting to find out what shape my account is in.
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I remembered a short-lived show on A&E that was called The Straight Dope. I was just surfing one day and wondered about it (not realizing that it was a newspaper column) and voila! There was the main page with the columns and this intriguing little link to the message boards. I lurked for many years before finally joining. Well worth the cash, despite the fact I almost never post.
While the boards are not searchable (from the outside), the Straight Dope column is. I was having an argument with a coworker about the strict (not colloquial) definition of “passive-aggressive” is, and Google turned up Cecil’s column: What is “passive-aggressive”? That got me hooked on his column, which I became a frequent internet reader and searcher of, and sooner or later I clicked the link into the message board. The rest, as they say, is history.
Yeah, Cecil’s column is the light that draws people in; the SDMB is the glue that binds (bad analogy). Besides Google, another main source for drawing in new users is Wikipedia. Say someone is looking at the article on M&Ms. They scroll down to the bottom and see “External Links” and notice the link How do they get the M’s on the M&Ms? Curious, they click on the link and get to Cecil’s column. From there, it’s only one more click to the Boards.
Yes, the Master is cited in some of the reports on Snopes.
There’s some overlap between The Straight Dope and some of the reference and investigational sites in cyberspace. There’s Dopers everywhere.
Snopes has the same sort of vibe to it, so it’s not too surprising. Fark will link to one of the columns on occasion, and that’s bound to lead to some people checking out the boards, given the numbers
I came to SDMB through a link from another discussion group. I 
am glad I found you guys!
I used to read the Straight Dope in print and then several years later stumbled on the online columns which in turn got me on the boards.
I read the column back in the late 80’s, in the paper in Chicago. When I finally got a computer I found myself wondering in the column was online. It was, and as others have said here, the message boards were only one more click away. I’d never, at the time, looked into or participated on any message boards, but this one made me a fan from the first.
I got here via snopes too.
I just spent all my time reading the archives, then sometimes reading the “thread spotted” conversations, then the whole boards and finally signed up!
I read all of the Cecil archives. I remember looking at the link for the message boards and thinking “crap, but do I want to talk about it?”. Eventually, like a year, I have in and clicked. I lurked for about 7 seconds.
Yeah, I’m hooked.
Really? If you search Google for the SDMB, you get lots of results.
Although my first thought was the same, I suppose what was meant was that the content of the message boards (the posts, that is) is not indexed or reported by any of the major search engines.
References to the message board itself on other sites, and the content of the Straight Dope site other than the message board appear in all the major search engines.
Welcome back, andros! Thought you could slip away, eh?
I tried, but Methadone just isn’t a good enough substitute. 
“Ask Yahoo”(or something similar) had a link to an old column in one of their articles, which is how I found the place.
A friend who lurks had on a few occasions sent me links to thread he thought might interest me. Finally, one thread so grabbed me, I paid up then and there.
Prior to that, I had read most of the books, so I was very familiar with TSD in general