Quora has become quite popular lately in the Q&A arena. There are good reasons for that. One reason I think Quora grew so fast is because it contained a strict "no self-promotional answers" policy. But Quora has recently changed that policy to allow self-promotional answers.
There is a robust conversation going on below the announcement regarding this policy change. Of course, there are Quorans who are for it and those who are against it. Not surprising, it it?
The problem is that Quora will run into some of the same problems that other websites have run into (namely, Twitter). It will become a haven for spammers. That's not to say that spammers will be the only people using it. Twitter is still a good marketing tool, but spammers have exploited it to a large degree and it has only made managing Twitter more difficult for Twitter employees and for Twitter users. Quora is going to experience the same problem.
Now that Google is indexing Quora in its real-time search product, marketers have a strong incentive to hit Quora with link spam. If they're not careful, Quora will end up being added to Google's content farm list.
But here's a question: Did Quora make its policy change because Google is now indexing the site in real time? Either way, it's a great opportunity for marketers to increase their social graph and their search presence in one fell swoop.