I'm telling you that they bring in search engine hits, which bring in revenue through ad clicks, and also bring in new members since they have to register to view images. So in that respect, yes I am patting myself on the back. CBRXX.com has only been up a few months and already beats out a competing site on many keywords; and that site has been up for over 6 years.
If it brings people to my site and they find what they need, I'm happy.
I have no doubt that they bring in hits. I have no doubt that your forum does well and congratulate you for that.
But look at it from an outsiders point of view who could care less about your revenue, number of signups, or anything like that. Are those threads going to impress them? Are they going to leave thinking, "That was a great read."
And I've always felt that tricking or forcing someone to signup only hurts you in the long run. We should have people signing up in droves because of the quality of content and interaction. This is part of the reason that wikipedia is becoming so prevalent in the SERPs for a given term. It is invariably QUALITY content. It's why forums like SomethingAwful can charge people to join and they do so in droves. Because the content and interaction is amazing.
*edit*
Quote:
Originally Posted by ConqSoft
(And I'm actually in the market for a mod to allow guests to see thumbnails, and not full size images. That would allow the pages to be more functional, but still require registration to see the full size images or to post their questions/comments.)
I think that would be a good compromise.
Again, please don't think I'm picking on you or I am trying to put anyone down here. I'm as guilty (if not more guilty) as anyone here. I simply came to the realization that most forums have little to no quality content worth sharing. I'm sure most people already realized this long ago, but I'm a little slower than most. Only difference for me is I really want to see forums succeed and have a big mouth
01-26-2007, 07:32 PM
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