This topic contains 0 replies, has 0 voices, and was last updated by 
-
Posts
-
In order to try and attract more random passing traffic, I’ve been considering taking the forums from behind the registration wall.
At the moment, because you have to be a signed-up member before you can even see the forums, search engine spiders cannot get access to the forums and so cannot index the wealth of information there which could potentially create hits and attract more viewers.
It is technically possible to allow spiders through but nobody else but this is tricky and by no means foolproof (if you allow certain IP addresses, people can easily fake those IP addresses).
The alternative, and the option I’m leaning toward, is to allow anyone to see the forums but only to allow registered users post to the forums. This means that the search engines can index the content and people can view the content without registering but the hope would be that you would attract many more viewers and even if a small proportion of these register to post – it will still be more than are currently posting.
However, I’m sensitive to the fact the people may not want their writings put in the full public view so I’m polling opinion to see what anyone thinks.
Should we go public with the forums or not? Please use the options above to vote!
Thanks,
Simon
I think personally that going public is absolutely essential. I have worked on forums myself for several years as a moderator, and am actually in the process of setting up my own one with a group of friends, whom I met in cyberspace.
If you want to attract members and grow and prosper, then you HAVE to be visible, as otherwise, people simply will not know that you there. It is always though a sensible precaution to only allow members to post. That way you actually encourage people to join. You will still get the odd spammer, but you can quickly and easily delete these.
My answer though would be yes, make it more public, but only allow members to post. That is way in fact that most forums operate, and I am a member of quite a lot of them !
As for people not wanting their words to be public – I thought the whole point of a forum like this was to share your views so that others can see them. If you don’t want that to happen, then I am afraid you have come to the wrong place !
June
Go public for sure, it is the only way forward. After all what is there to hide?
Although I am sure that I’ve written things here that I’m going to be embarrassed by later, opening the forums to public view is probably a quick ‘n dirty way to raise the profile not just of this site, but perhaps of psychic-questing thanks to the breadth of subjects we might cover. I voted to allow anyone to view, but only members to post. And at the end of the day, if it doesn’t work out you can presumably reverse the operation.
Michael
I voted for the middle option. Be seen by all but make people join if they want to comment (then you can also ban people should they start flaming or spamming etc
Public is good… I’m all for anything that makes Michael embaressed!
)(We all say things that we often later change our minds about… its good to be simple and honest, and ‘open’)
I’m in favour of public reading/member posting, and contacting all members (at least all those who have contributed to the forum) before making the change – then everyone will have the chance to edit their contributions if they feel the need.
Although I have yet to post, I am a regular visitor and I do believe that people passing through should be able to view the posts, but not post until they sign up.
It would probably increase the number of people interested in this field and increase the volume of posts to bot.
Kind Regards
Baruc.Yup I also voted for the middle option. Making them open brings in more ideas and enables the flow of knowledge.
Certainly in the past, if I felt something was too sensitive to be ‘out there’ I would either not post that part or take it to PM.
You go for it Simon!
BB
Vix
I agree with the option of opening up the Forum for general viewing, but with having to register to contribute.
There should be nothing to hide, so it should mainly bring new interest by alowing people to have a peek at things before registering…
OK – the die is cast. The wall is down on the forums. I see that the google spider has already been doing its work ([url:3pbv47do]http://www.psychicquesting.com/robotstats_new[/url] for those of you who are interested in such things) but it could be anything up to a few months before the indexes are added to the search engine. I have a few obscure word combinations that I check occasionally (e.g. “bolendas lazarus ephesus”) but if anyone else notices that they get a forum page hit I’d appreciate a heads-up.
Let’s see what difference to the traffic this exposure makes. Thanks for all your feedback and ongoing support.
Well the forum visibility changes appear to be working in one sense. November was the busiest month (20695 Hits) so far in the life of psychicQuesting.com and it also had the single busiest day (19 November – 1505 Hits).
The forum articles have definitely begun to be indexed. My unique combination now shows a pQ result if searched from Google or Yahoo which is great.
Looking at the search words that are actually bringing people here though, it is still very much “Andrew Collins”/”Psychic Questing” but that should start to change as more obscure words are picked up and indexed.
It would be great to think that this increased activity will bring more unsolicited contributions but no sign of that as yet…
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.