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Google’s Panda Algorithm Update

By on May 12, 2011 in SEO

Tweet The Panda update from Google that affected the search engine rankings of a lot of sites has caused a lot of angst among some webmasters as they watch their rankings fall. Everyone is looking for answers. Not a lot of forums appear to have been affected. There has been a lot of discussion at [...]

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The Value of Facebook Advertising for a Forum

By on March 25, 2011 in 101 Tips and Ideas, Forum Promotion

Tweet I was just checking the metrics for one of the forums I run and was surprised to see that Facebook was second to Google as the referring site. Given the recent Panda update that Google did that did affect traffic to a large number of sites, the need to diversify traffic sources is important [...]

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OpenX Adserver book

By on April 5, 2010 in Forum Monetization

Tweet I have already talked about the huge benefits from the use of the OpenX Adserver and why I use it here at ForumDr and all my sites. One problem with OpenX was the steep learning curve when you first start using it. I have no doubt that the learning curve is well worth what [...]

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Barefoot Running

By on March 30, 2010 in Whatever

Tweet This is not a really a topic on forum management (hence its filed under ‘Whatever’), but I am a forum junkie. I own several and moderate at several others and contribute to some others and hang out at even more. I am also a bit of a fitness nut and have been known in [...]

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How to get traffic to your forum

By on March 26, 2010 in Forum Promotion

Tweet As part of the 90 9 1 principle of forum participation, getting traffic to the site is of prime importance to build up the 90, so the 9 builds up and then the 1 (ignore that actual numbers, as it’s the principle or framework that counts). You have got your forum up and running, [...]

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Why Google’s PR is important for a forum

By on March 17, 2010 in SEO

Tweet I have already posted about what Google’s PR or PageRank is. Many of the SEO Kiddies live for the day when Google “update” the PR every 3-4 months (when in reality they update it every day internally). Many of the SEO Kiddies and the SEO experts have dismissed PR as no longer being important [...]

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Why does Google use DMOZ?

By on February 5, 2010 in SEO

Tweet Firstly no one except Google has any idea of what a listing in the web directory DMOZ has on the ranking of websites in the search engine results. Many people like to believe that a web site listed in DMOZ is at an advantage over a site that is not listed. Others like to [...]

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Selling advertising space on your forum

By on January 25, 2010 in 101 Tips and Ideas, Forum Monetization

Tweet There are many options to monetize a forum, from Google Adsense, to affiliates such as eBay and Amazon. The direct selling of advertising space is another option. This requires more active work than the more passive methods such as Adsense and affiliate programs. Here is how I go about it: In an spreadsheet I [...]

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Suicide threats made in a forum

By on January 23, 2010 in Member Management

Tweet Have you had a suicide threat on your forum from a member? Chances are you haven’t and most forums probably will not have to deal with it. Some forums will and do have to deal with these. What­ will do you do if a member of your forum makes comments about committing suicide? Are [...]

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Nulled vBulletin

By on January 14, 2010 in Design & Software, Legal

Tweet Nulled vBulletin is not a different version of the forum software vBulletin. Nulled vBulletin is a version of the software that has been hacked to remove the license information. The nulled means it has been pirated and everything that could identify the owner of the licence has been removed or deactivated (however, sometimes the hacker [...]

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Using a Paid Forum Posting Service to Kickstart a Forum

By on January 11, 2010 in Forum Management

Tweet There are many ways to kickstart a community. One option in the early days is the use of a paid forum posting service – that is paying people to post to get that initial content. There are plenty of sites offering this service and packages for a variety of prices (see below). On a [...]

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Monetizing a Forum

By on January 10, 2010 in 101 Tips and Ideas, Forum Monetization

Tweet Forums cost money to run and they take time to run (see a day in the life of a forum admin). If you are in it just for the passion or the money, there are a number of ways to recoup the expenses and cover your time involved in running the forum, and if [...]

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What signals do self-promotional links tell the search engines?

By on January 8, 2010 in SEO

Tweet We all know the importance of building links to web sites to improve traffic and improve search engine rankings. For forums, building links to individual threads is a great way to take advantage of the long tail part of the search spectrum. There are many ways to get links to a site. The best [...]

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Monetize a forum with Adsense

By on January 6, 2010 in Forum Monetization

Tweet Google’s Adsense program is probably one of the more effective ways to monetize a forum. Essentially, you place the Google Adsense code on your forum in the template for where you wish to show the advertisements, Google then displays contextually relevant advertisements from their pool of Adwords advertisers. If your visitors click on them, [...]

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What is DMOZ? Understanding DMOZ

By on January 5, 2010 in SEO

Tweet DMOZ or the ODP (Open Directory Project) is a web directory that so many want to get their websites (or in our case, our forums) listed in to build a backlink to their sites from a site that the search engines may consider an authority site. We could get into the silly allegations about [...]

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