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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 11:32 am
Post subject: This Forum Software
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A few questions about the software used to host this forum:
Do I understand correctly that Google will spider all these posts and include them in their index? Thus, all we forum users are adding tons of new food for search engines to Allan's site?
Would Wally or Allan like to comment on how much work hosting this forum is? How much time is involved, what tasks need to be performed, what's the worst part about the admin side, etc. Anything you care to share is appreciated.
I know forums can be hard to get off the ground. Would anyone like to offer their ideas on how much traffic a site should have before the site owner should consider installing a forum?
I've checked out the company that makes this software and they appear to be an excellent resource. I'm pretty technical and wouldn't need help with most tasks. But... I know nothing about databases really. In other words I would need access to a reliable tech who can rescue the forum in the event of a major problem. Anybody know someone?
I have another site that uses mySQL, and though it is generally reliable, it does go down once or twice a year, and finding someone to fix it in those instances is difficult. The job is too big for me, and too small for a talented tech.
Forums appear to be an excellent content creation tool, and I've yet to find a good one in my niche. Will welcome a discussion of discussion boards if anyone is interested.
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robertb
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 11:53 am
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I'm not sure how "spiderable" these pages are, but the organization that produces this forum does have some type of mod that makes these pages more "spiderable" pages. I'm not sure of the details of this, but it's something you'll probably want to check out.
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akany
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 12:50 pm
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Google Bot does not like Session Variables in the url. I do not know if the crawler likes this board software, but I made some good experience with the latest http://www.VBulletin.com , it is very crawler friendly
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Last edited by akany on Thu Apr 15, 2004 3:01 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 2:40 pm
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Thanks for comments guys.
I finally got a clue, duh, and also posted my question on the phpBB board:
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=189578
First reply indicates that google will not index phpBB posts in the default config of phpBB, but apparently there are modifications you can make to accomplish this. I don't understand what is involved in making these modifications, but I'm sure those on the phpBB board do.
A lot has been written here about creating relevant content for google traffic. Getting your users to do much of this job for you seems like a fun and appropriate way for them to repay you for whatever they are getting out of your site. Thanks for the example Allan!
Assuming the tech issues can be addressed, then the question for most of us becomes, how to leverage a site with modest traffic in to an active forum?
My site is a local topic, so I'm trying to think of ways I might be able to network together the interests of local businesses and clubs relevant to my niche. All these folks have sites, but few if any of them (including me so far) have the traffic that would support a board. But if many of these audiences could be brought together under one roof, then a critical forum mass might be acheived, to everyone's benefit. Those who enjoy biking trails may also be open to saving the mantees and buying some camping gear etc.
My experience is that our culture is beginning to reach a saturation point on Internet strategies enthusiasm and it's harder now to cut through the background noise and explain a business proposition clearly in the 30 seconds you usually have to make your presentation. If anybody has experience with or thoughts on this kind of local forum networking, I'm all ears.
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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 7:50 pm
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For anyone following this thread:
I've now read a whole bunch of posts on the phpBB forum and am sad to report the question of whether the software operating this forum (phpBB) is spider friendly or not is a hopeless muddle, for now at least.
If you want all the gory details:
http://www.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=156382
Bottom line, phpBB can not be counted on to create spider friendly content at this time.
But of course, there are other reasons to host a forum, and other forum software.
phpBB is great in so many other regards, it's a shame it's not quite ready for real net biz yet. 
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akany
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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 8:23 pm
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Thanks akany, you're right. I'm on their site now, thanks for the lead!
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AllanGardyne
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2004 6:28 am
Post subject: Re: This Forum Software
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| Phil Tanny wrote: | | Thus, all we forum users are adding tons of new food for search engines to Allan's site? |
It might amaze you, but I didn't even consider that aspect when I launched this forum. I haven't done any research on it. Obviously, I should have.
Anyway, such traffic is useless unless you can use it profitably. I assume you must have a plan to encourage those visitors to buy something or subscribe to your newsletter, etc.
| Quote: | | Would Wally or Allan like to comment on how much work hosting this forum is? How much time is involved, what tasks need to be performed, what's the worst part about the admin side, etc. |
Wally monitors the forum usually two or three times a day, seven days a week, and has done so for several years, so it requires very serious dedication.
A major frustration for Wally is people who apparently make flying visits and post messages in the first spot they see. You'll need software that makes it very easy to move posts.
Another frustration is the need to sweep out the garbage - delete spam. Sometimes a visitor will post the same spam in 10 places.
Wally averages 25 hours a month on such administration. Obviously, a busier forum would require more time.
To keep your forum really clean of such junk, you could have three moderators placed around the globe, each with an eight-hour period for which they were responsible.
The real time-hog is the time the forum owner spends replying to posts. I often spend several hours a day reading posts and private messages and writing replies.
It's very common for me to spend all day answering emails (I have someone to help me do that) and answering posts on the forum. I doubt very much whether that is the most effective use of my time, but what the heck - I'm addicted!
If you do a search of this forum you'll find another discusion on this topic in which I mention that you should make sure that your forum is properly integrated with your main site (this forum isn't), so that the forum attracts new visitors and leads them towards your sales pages, or newsletter or whatever.
(This forum was put together by a technician I hired when I was sick. It works very well - he's a good technician. A properly designed forum would be created by a technician AND an experienced marketer working together.)
You should also design the forum so that you can place AdSense ads prominently, probably on the top right of the page. This forum was launched before ADSense came along.
If you're doing it to make money, have a look at the way ABestweb monetizes things.
If you're thinking of the forum merely as a funnel to lure traffic to your main site, there are much cheaper, simpler and less time-consuming ways of attracting traffic.
| Quote: | | I know forums can be hard to get off the ground. Would anyone like to offer their ideas on how much traffic a site should have before the site owner should consider installing a forum? |
I think Jim Daniels once suggested you need 2,000 or 3,000 visitors a day - I forget which. That's probably close to the mark. A surprising number of people will visit and not make posts.
The answer must depend hugely on how lucky you are in attracting members who are willing to spend time writing well thought out posts that provide real value to your visitors. I've been extremely fortunate there - some wonderfully generous people visit this forum. You know who you are, folks!
Perhaps it would help your forum if you have a bone marrow transplant or something similar and get a sympathy vote going 
One thing to consider is what will happen to your forum when you have a few days off. Will you take your laptop on holiday with you? Who will sweep out the garbage?
You need to ask yourself why you want to start the forum. Do you like writing? Do you want to help people? Are you starved for affection, or something? Are you quite right in head?
Before you launch your forum, make sure you have a solid, hands-off business that generates a reliable revenue stream, because if your forum is a success, soon you'll be so busy "working" on the forum you won't have much time for anything else
Phil my friend, rethink this crazy idea.
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Allan Gardyne
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akany
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2004 8:16 am
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It is not really very hard to run a forum that already has some posters. I'm the admin of a board with 1,900 users and 130,000 posts and all I do is updating the boardsoftware from time to time. The only hard thing is to get it started, that will cost you some time - you should have some good moderators from the beginning - the rest is easy going.
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Last edited by akany on Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:07 am; edited 1 time in total |
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HHW_Kevin
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2004 8:57 am
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You may also want to have a look at Invision Board, much more powerful than phpBB from my experience.
http://www.invisionboard.com/
You can run it free if you don't want support and don't mind a small notice at the bottom of the pages. If you want full support, extra modules such as subscriptions manager and chat then there is a $199 lifetime license fee, or I think around $60 for a yearly license.
No affiliation with this product, just that I've used it and have found it to be one of the best available. Another option to look at anyway.
Kev
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administrator
Site Admin
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2004 9:19 am
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Thanks for the detailed reply, Allan.
I remember taking my laptop to Brisbane to keep up with the moderation when I had my big C treatment, too.
I also recall Allan's encouraging all to list a URL in the sig. file. to get more chance of spidering. Yes, he believed that it worked!! Now it's back to the drawing board with all your doubts in that regard.
Myself, I am merely the moderator - I do not participate in your "industry" - if that's the right word - and I just wish I could move messages more easily between topics but I don't have enough expertise to install a mod that would create that protocol.
Nevertheless, the Message Board runs reasonably smoothly with excellent information for those with the best noses.
Speaking of noses, did you know your sense of taste is 90% based in your nose!? Olfactory vs gustatory! Test by eating a piece of chocolate while holding your nose - breathing is a little difficult. Release your nose to enjoy the next piece. (A fact from Totally Wild!!)
Now get those noses working and search the forums and topics for the gems of wisdom.
Best wishes to all.
Wally Morgan - Moderator
Last edited by administrator on Fri Apr 16, 2004 7:44 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2004 3:14 pm
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My final report on phpBB is that one of the developers kindly replied to my posts and reported that the next version of the software will be spider friendly. He sounds credible, I believe him. It's an open source project so there's probably not much point in asking when the next version will be ready, but here's where anyone who might be interested can sign up for an annoucement list for this product:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phpbb/
Also, be aware that there are some spider helping hacks available right now that some people report work some of the time on some boards depending on the phase of the moon and other factors beyond my grasp. Like I said, it's a confusing muddle, that I've opted out of.
Allan, your post is very helpful as usual, and hilarious to boot. Thanks for the grins.
Yes, I'm not right in the head, everyone knows this, and no, I don't get sympathy for it either. You went in to a better illness niche than I did, just like you went in to a better business niche. 
Yes, I think I see your point (correct me if I'm wrong). It's less work to create one's own content than to manage user created content. Is that what you're saying basically? I'm listening, that does sound like a very reasonable proposition.
I think forums are fun, but from a business perspective the whole point of me managing my own forum rather than letting you and Wally do all the work would be that users would be adding spidered indexed content to my site. I've felt from square one that forums would indeed be too much work without that benefit, which is why I have ended my look at phpBB for now, with regrets. Perhaps forums are too much work in any case, I hear you.
Please forgive my simple minded linear logic, but your post has also confused me somewhat.
I might have misunderstood (that happens!) but it seems on one hand you are telling me I'd be nuts to manage a forum, but on the other hand you are detailing the thousands of hours a year you and Wally invest in it. OK, I assume Wally is on the payroll, so I get his motivation, but why would you do this when your philosophy seems to be so invested in labor free income?
OK, if it's a fun hobby, I get that, cause I'm here too and nobody is paying me.
The main point I get from you that I need to think ahead of time on how to intregrate business goals in to the forum, and that's wise counsel to me because I'm a technician at heart and too often do things just to enjoy the tech challenge. This might be one of those.
Thanks as always!
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AllanGardyne
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Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2004 7:19 am
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| Phil Tanny wrote: | | Yes, I think I see your point (correct me if I'm wrong). It's less work to create one's own content than to manage user created content. Is that what you're saying basically? |
Yes. Instead of answering posts on this forum, I could have spent the time researching and writing hundreds of articles, which could have been neatly organized into a useful web site, with each article and each page carefully optimized for the search engines.
User-created content can be powerfully useful but it's also unpredictable, haphazard and occasionally even wrong. If you write your own content, you choose exactly what goes on your site.
| Quote: | | I think forums are fun, but from a business perspective the whole point of me managing my own forum rather than letting you and Wally do all the work would be that users would be adding spidered indexed content to my site. |
That's an important point. I haven't achieved it, but it must be possible to create a fairly hands-off forum in which other people do the monitoring and contributing, while the forum attracts traffic to your site.
| Quote: | ...it seems on one hand you are telling me I'd be nuts to manage a forum, but on the other hand you are detailing the thousands of hours a year you and Wally invest in it. OK, I assume Wally is on the payroll, so I get his motivation, but why would you do this when your philosophy seems to be so invested in labor free income?
OK, if it's a fun hobby, I get that, cause I'm here too and nobody is paying me. |
I think Wally must be addicted too, now. I'm sure he spends more time here than the hours he tells me.
I can't explain explain it fully, but answering people's questions makes me feel good. (I ignore some of the private ones, though - I don't want to spend 20 minutes or whatever writing an answer that helps only one person.)
I suppose, if I'm totally honest, it's makes me feel important, too, to have my own forum  It's kinda fun, too, for a shy person to have a public profile.
Fortunately, Joanna and I are earning a nice living now from affiliate programs and so I can choose how I spend my time. I often do things without stopping to figure out whether they'll earn money. If this forum didn't generate a cent, I'd still be quite OK.
Although I use various techniques such as signatures and links to my articles to generate some income from the time I spend on the forum, I've never regarded the forum as a money-spinner. So if you want to create a forum to make money then I'm not the best person to ask.
I've spent several years doing labor-intensive affiliate marketing, and - apart from this forum - I've switched away from it. Now I try to warn people to look for labor-saving ways to earn a living. Looks for ways where you get leverage, where you do the work once and get paid for that work many times.
If you figure this out very carefully, you might succeed in achieving it with a forum. If you do it wrong, you might just trap yourself into spending a lot of time sitting at a keyboard typing stuff.
| Quote: | | The main point I get from you that I need to think ahead of time on how to integrate business goals in to the forum... |
Absolutely!
Good luck.
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Last edited by AllanGardyne on Thu Sep 30, 2004 7:54 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Phil Tanny
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Posted: Sat Apr 17, 2004 10:25 am
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Thanks for sharing all this Allan. You are a good sport my man, and you deserve your success.
Yes, I see it now, the trouble with forums is that they are too much darn fun, and could be a big distraction from more productive activities. Regrettably, me not starting my own forum doesn't solve this as I just come here to waste time instead. I'm joking of course, in between making proclamations I am learning alot and am grateful for your service.
Some of the issues you raise are addressed by the fact that most of us here would have quiet little forums on our sites, because we don't have, may never have, the traffic necessary for a vigorous community.
One way to look at may be to think small, as you've suggested in other threads. I'm trying to add one page a day to my site. If my forum adds another spiderable page a day, then even though that's not the big time, I have multiplied my efforts by some percentage.
Here's a resource that might be useful to somebody:
http://www.proboards.com/
They provide a free forum hosting solution. Their members have been signing up for my exit traffic service like crazy lately.
It's far from perfect as the content gets created on the proboards site, not yours, and they earn the ad income. But maybe it's a solution for somebody who just wants to add a community to their site for fun, and doesn't want to deal with the tech issues involved. Honestly I don't know that much about their service, so investigate with care. I did a little business with the owner once, and he seemed like a good guy.
The whole subject of the compelling nature of the Net is a very interesting can of worms I would enjoy trying to create a site on. Maybe I'll create a forum where thousands of bleary eyed people will stay up all night compulsively discussing their addictions to the forum. If I could learn how to monetize such philosophical adventures I'd be a happy camper, until my carpal tunnel grounded me anyway. :-0
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Phil Tanny
Joined:
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Posted: Sun Apr 18, 2004 12:14 am
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Here's a business idea that might be useful to somebody. Or maybe it's baloney, all comments welcome.
I have a nature travel site about north Florida specifically. There are lots of groups and businesses who are involved with enjoying the outdoors here, in a wide variety of ways. Biking, hiking, kayak, camping, photography, activism, etc etc.
For my business to be successful I have to join this communtiy and offer something of value to these organizations, and their customers/members.
If I invite all these people to join "my forum" I'm just another net salesman making a pitch. Nobody returns my phone calles or emails.
Suppose I instead offer all these organizations a free forum of their own that I host on my server, under my domain name?
I'm the behind the scenes tech guy, but they moderate and manage their own forums. I support a dozen or two forum owners, they support their own users. They get the sense of ownership necessary to fuel their energies.
The forums are cross promoted so that each forum benefits from an association with the others.
I get all the Adsense or other ad income income in exchange for providing this service, and all these other organizations are bringing traffic to my domain.
I'm pretty good at tech stuff, but am wary of falling victim to a poor business model, as Allan so rightly warns me.
Use this, abuse it, or lose it. All comments, however discouraging, are welcome.
Thanks!
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