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HostXNow

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Some feedback would be great!

PS I do promote HD any many different sites. I just figured there's only mainly WHT, HD, FWH, and now FH. All the other's aren't that good, IMO.

I hope you all like forums.hosting design/layout etc.

Feedback good and bad (as long as constructive) is most welcome.

Kind regards,
Chris
 
A few days ago I looked at the homepage and I was like oh another forum. Now that I got a good look at the forum structure it's a nice looking forum with all the categories and descriptions filled out.

Nice domain name.

I'm going to sign up soon...

Nice JOB! on it.
 
Julio said:
A few days ago I looked at the homepage and I was like oh another forum. Now that I got a good look at the forum structure it's a nice looking forum with all the categories and descriptions filled out.

Nice domain name.

I'm going to sign up soon...

Nice JOB! on it.
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I tried to use "Thanks" button on your post, but it seems the forum only lets you use 1 "Thanks" per thread.

Happy to hear you now like the forum after it was updated a bit more. Still more things that can be improved, etc.
 
Sounds good looking forward to it.

I just remembered when I first saw the forum it was on the 6th that I sent you a message through twitter trying to sell you the domain ForumSolutions. When I first saw it I thought it was forum to sell a forum type of software like vbulletin, xenforo...

Then I saw it a few days ago and thought it was a regular forum.

I'm defently signing up for it now.
 
My comment is not going to be as much on design (after all, it is a default theme) or layout, but as much on structure and content.

Structurally, the forum is very solid. Clearly well thought through forums and their order: core topics, marketplace, general/announcements/news. Forum descriptions are excellent and user friendly.

Now, the content. It is fantastic that you are staying as active as possible. People will take notice as they decide to invest their time in your community. Continue pushing topics and new ideas, get the members involved in decision-making, which I see you are doing already. As I shared with you when we spoke before your launch, forums are not easy. There are no shortcuts. It will require time, dedication, investment and more time to make it a success, especially during the time when forums in general are experiencing a decline. I know you and I know that you are all about quality, which is exactly what will help you set the standard for your community. Quality has always attracted quality contributors and people who have no time to waste on fluffy communities.

Overall, I am proud to be the first (I believe) user registered on your forum, after yourself. Bragging rights for life. :D

PS: Love the pink theme.
 
Many thanks for the feedback, Artashes.

Yes, the pink theme is good. I created a Night Mode theme (similar to what Twitter has) too for those who like to read on their devices at night, but I still need to tweak the theme as there are still some bugs in places.

I'll try my best with it with the little spare time I have. I'm hoping other members will help the forum to become more active.

:beer:
 
Love the overal design layout of the site.

The one word of caution I'd have for you is that the links from your site to other sites currently are being followed by search engines. This will create a nightmare for you when it comes to Spammers. An online forum with free "link juice" - sign me up!!!! :)

So I'd recommend that you make any links outside of your domain are flagged as "rel=nofollow". While it won't eliminate spam, it would certainly ensure you're not on a "dofollow" blog list of places to spam from.
 
Thanks for the feedback bigredseo.

Being do-follow is intentional. Spammers fluff will be removed whether it is dofollow or not. If they want to create quality guides, etc. and have linkback in their signature, then that is fair. Like it is at other popular forums. Hopefully, in time, there will be enough awesome moderators who can help with issues like that.

I know HD is "rel=nofollow", but I still post here. If it were dofollow, then that would be a bonus, and no doubt might increase the chance or more experts contributing quality content, but that's up to the owner of this forum. I'd rather just leave it as dofollow.

Many thanks,
Chris
 
Excellent suggestion by the SEO expert Big Red SEO. I would join him in advising the same.

People join communities today if they present quality content, contributions and the opportunity to benefit through advertising yourself. They aren't joining it because the forum is a "do-follow" site. Everyone is getting a relatively equal amount of exposure in a discussion.

If you are a web hosting company and a member of a forum, people are going to sign up with you when they notice your knowledge and helpfulness through contributions, not the volume of ads and not even the volume of posts (if most of them is fluff). There is no better advertising than to help someone with a great advice and/or practical solution. Its impact is much, much higher in terms of sales value.
 
And then you come across people from time to time with the attitude they they're not going to share their trade secrets with others on a forum because that'll cost them business. I know we had one member here that claimed that years ago. In reality, if you share value-add tips on the forums, you'll attract prospects to your site.
 
Artashes said:
They aren't joining it because the forum is a "do-follow" site.
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I never said that, but I get your point and agree with it. I'll stand by what I originally said though. I'll leave it enabled. I had experience of that when running forums many years ago and it didn't make much difference whether it was allowed or not.

I mainly take part in sites that are good/busy. Not so much about whether dofollow is allowed or not.

Thanks.
 
HostXNow said:
I never said that, but I get your point and agree with it. I'll stand by what I originally said though. I'll leave it enabled. I had experience of that when running forums many years ago and it didn't make much difference whether it was allowed or not.
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Oh no, I wasn't implying that you did say that. But I am glad you understood what I was trying to say. :)

I think that if you moderate the forum proactively, you shouldn't have any problems. The only thing to remember is that Google/Microsoft search bots are constantly present on your site, so if they pick up links with bad rep from time to time before you have the chance to remove them, I don't know how that might affect your own site ranking.

PS: I just remembered something. I am going to privately email you a link to a little piece of code that will drastically lower spammers from signing up. It isn't likely anything that you are thinking of right now, but clever as hell and very effective.
 
Sounds like a plan. Maybe you can code something in the forum that they only get the "DOFOLLOW" if there is more than "X" content, but have that as a random number between a set of numbers.

My concern for the forum has to do with people posting "yeah" or "I agree" and nothing else, just so they can get their signature on the thread. The thread gains Domain Authority and then they can leech some of your authority to their site as a result.

But I definitely respect your idea of leaving it as dofollow, it's just not normal to see that these days.

Fingers crossed for you. If I can be of any help, feel free to hit me up.
 
Artashes said:
I think that if you moderate the forum proactively, you shouldn't have any problems. The only thing to remember is that Google/Microsoft search bots are constantly present on your site, so if they pick up links with bad rep from time to time before you have the chance to remove them, I don't know how that might affect your own site ranking.
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I thought about that, but then I don't know how that might affect site ranking after Google checks back later to see that the link that was there has now gone because a Moderator has removed it. They must take stuff like that into account. They'd be pretty stupid if they didn't.

But I agree in that it could be possible to have an adverse effect temporarily. I'm leaning more towards that links probably don't affect SERPs for a week or two for the reasons I mentioned above. I'd like to think they have an algorithm for that to take it into account. They're well aware that a lot of websites/blogs/forums need to be moderated and links slip through.

I think as long as Mods remove them within a reasonable time then it should be fine. If one did get through that was very bad then Google would notify you about it at some point and then you could remove it manually.

Keep in mind that it's also good to link to other authoritative pages by dofollow. If you nofollow everything including links to well-known trusted sites then that may not help either.

I think no one other than Google knows the true answers to this, but I don't think it makes a major difference eitherway for the reasons I mentioned i.e using nofollow or dofollow both have their pros and cons but the end result will probably be the same. :dknow:

Ps thanks for the email, Art.
 
HostXNow said:
I'm leaning more towards that links probably don't affect SERPs for a week or two for the reasons I mentioned above. I'd like to think they have an algorithm for that to take it into account. They're well aware that a lot of websites/blogs/forums need to be moderated and links slip through.
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Good point.
 
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