Viewer Statistics Comparisons

[Eric Lyon]

Viewer Statistics Comparisons

After many members and staff pointed out that they feel NamePros is lacking in member participation and all around viewer statistics, I decided to dig a bit deeper so I could get a clearer picture of what's happening. I compared a couple popular domaining communities with NamePros just so we could compare actual numbers. all the numbers below were taken within a few minutes of one another at the same time of day to help insure accuracy. It should also be noted that for the past few weeks the below numbers appeared to remain consistent.

NamePros
Logged in Members: 105
Guests viewing: 245
Record Online total: 4394 (10-05-2008 10:12 PM)

DNF
Logged in Members: 112
Guests viewing: 3429
Record Online total: 17,415 (04-06-2011 at 12:47 PM)

DomainState
Logged in Members: 0
Guests viewing: 196
Record Online total: 27,379 (09-14-2011 at 07:11 PM)

NameSlot
Logged in Members: 148
Guests viewing: 3842
Record Online total: 8,861 (02-01-2012 at 06:43 PM)

DomainForums
Logged in Members: 0
Guests viewing: 68
Record Online total: 334 (08-16-2005 at 08:36 PM)

Forums.DigitalPoint
Logged in Members: 153
Guests viewing: 1314
Record Online total: 22,414 (Sep 15th 2009 at 1:54 AM)

The above are just a fraction of some of the large communities that cater to domainers. As you can see in the very basic numbers scheme of things, NamePros is VERY competitive in the Logged in user numbers and right up there with the other big communities. Where NamePros is hurting is in the Guests Viewing area. Unlike the other big communities we seem to be stuck in a low xxx hump when it comes to guests visiting us.

With that said it could be due to a number of factors such as but not limited to:

• Sending to many threads to the Graveyard (Graveyard is NOT indexable by search engines)
• Members editing out their posts removing all the content
• Members not posting full articles on NamePros & just using links to blogs to read more
• Stale Content - Rehashed topics that are no longer of popular interest

What ever the reasons may be for our Low guest numbers, I would like to take this opportunity to ask if any of you have some ideas on how we can ethically rectify this small obstacle and start getting the fresh new guest viewers that the other communities are getting. Changing rules probably isn't a real solution so lets brainstorm some other ideas. Please keep in mind that Guest Viewers are potential buyers and sellers so I would imagine everyone should feel the same way and want more eyeballs on the marketplace where you may or may not be buying & selling yourself.

A few Ideas of my own might be:

• Start NamePros Blogs - ONLY staff members, NP Supporters, & Business members may submit articles. Each article will allow 1 author link in the footer that is indexable by search engines in an effort to assist with the authors inbound link campaign as a thank you for the content contribution.
• Set a time limit on post edit ability, maybe 24 hours, to help cut down on the hundreds of threads edited into blank pages each month.
• Encourage People to post more than just one liners (e.g. Thanks for info, I like it, ty, I learned a lot, interesting, etc.)
• Utilize Free ad spaces
• Start a more rewarding referral Program for site Owners / Bloggers and provide a set of banners they may use. Prizes for Top referrers of the month might be things like: Free 1 month account upgrade, Free 1 month Sticky Thread in marketplace, Free 1 Month forum sponsorship, etc..

If you have some more ideas for us, we are all ears and look forward to your suggestions.

Eric Lyon
Administration

 

[lll]

Namepros needs more advertising on all domain blogs.

Dnfblog from dnf owner Adam is a brilliant idea, np should do something similar.

Admining you scorp was a step in the right direction for sure as you are super active and that is what the site needs!!!

Let me have a member services slot that you got promoted from?
I can tech admin on the VB side of things.

I am very skilled at digging in the tables and recoding and mods/skins/etc...

Just a few thoughts.

 

[Eric Lyon]

@ Everyone
Ok, I just got done going through each Forum (one by one) and setting the defaults to "SHOW ALL POSTS". Most the forums were stopping at a 30 to 75 day cap and hiding the rest which were naturally causing them to drop from search engines. So we hope that this change helps get more pages indexed and thus leads to more organic guest viewers in the future.

@ BD
I agree, that the Blog idea might be a strong and effective move. This is something that may be an option in the future sometime.

Eric Lyon
Administration

 

[lll]

Remove the (1 viewing) next to the sections on the forum index bro!
I always hate that when the numbers are low. IMO.

 

[Domagon]

Another route to consider is adding more depth beyond just being a forum.

Create a non-forum centric homepage on the main namepros.com domain (move the forums over to say forums.namepros.com ) with content, features, services, etc in which the forums are easily accessible / integrated into, but aren't the primary focus.

Also, in my experience, ad click-through / response rates, are often far higher on content pages than on forums, as in 10x-100x higher.

There's a lot of risk with much effort being required, so it may not be practical to do, but putting the suggestion out there to ponder.

Ron

 

[JB Lions]

Start NamePros Blogs - ONLY staff members, NP Supporters, & Business members may submit articles. Each article will allow 1 author link in the footer that is indexable by search engines in an effort to assist with the authors inbound link campaign as a thank you for the content contribution.

I've seen other forums try that and it backfired. Whatever blog or article somebody starts, should be started here in the forum. If somebody is good enough to blog, they usually start one on their own so they can make money for themselves not another company. Forums should be forums, content should be all in one place, not scattered. It shouldn't try to be a blog or some article dump.

Set a time limit on post edit ability, maybe 24 hours, to help cut down on the hundreds of threads edited into blank pages each month.

Are you talking about just responses in threads? Or thread starters too? For sales threads, editing the first post, removing sold domains, making updates, should stay.


Encourage People to post more than just one liners (e.g. Thanks for info, I like it, ty, I learned a lot, interesting, etc.)

Not sure how you do that. People are going to post what they want to post, maybe they just want to do a one liner. Steering people usually ends up having the opposite effect, less participation.

I would focus on the suggestions members already made in the big suggestion thread.

 

[Ben42]

Closer to 300 guests right now. I've never really trusted those guest numbers. I think a lot of forum software may inflate them ridiculously. 200-300 real people guests sounds a lot more likely than 3000. I bet that's 90% ghosts.

Good job on this btw, we love analytics, would love to see more numbers about the forum.

 

[Eric Lyon]

NamePros Blogs - I've seen other forums try that and it backfired. Whatever blog or article somebody starts, should be started here in the forum. If somebody is good enough to blog, they usually start one on their own so they can make money for themselves not another company. Forums should be forums, content should be all in one place, not scattered. It shouldn't try to be a blog or some article dump.

Technically we already have a blog / article type section here: http://www.namepros.com/featured-articles/ and looking through it, it doesn't get much activity so you may have hit the nail on the head. I have seen some do good and others fail, but with the lack of activity in our already existing article section I'm leaning more towards your thoughts on this one.

Set a time limits on posts to edit - Are you talking about just responses in threads? Or thread starters too? For sales threads, editing the first post, removing sold domains, making updates, should stay.

Was just a thought, but it does seem that there's an influx of after sale editing leaving hundreds of threads empty. I can definitely see the desire to edit them out though (Search engines). So this probably wouldn't be something feasible in the marketplace to do.

Encourage People to post more than one liners - Not sure how you do that. People are going to post what they want to post, maybe they just want to do a one liner. Steering people usually ends up having the opposite effect, less participation.

Ya, this is a tough one sometimes to wrap our heads around. Most times though it's easy to see who's doing it for Post Count inflation reasons just to get their signatures activated.

I would focus on the suggestions members already made in the big suggestion thread.

Slowly but surely we are weeding through that thread and looking over all the suggestions. Finding the suggestions amongst all the freedom of speech debates can be a little bit of an obstacle, but we are sorting through it. lol :hehe:

Closer to 300 guests right now. I've never really trusted those guest numbers. I think a lot of forum software may inflate them ridiculously. 200-300 real people guests sounds a lot more likely than 3000. I bet that's 90% ghosts.

Good job on this btw, we love analytics, would love to see more numbers about the forum.

Ya, I've heard rumors about some of the other communities setting the timers of how long to count activity a bit high so it gives the impression of more online. Not sure about the accuracy of such rumors though

Eric Lyon

 

[GF]

My suggestion: Stop over-moderation of the board.

Having been a moderator for several years, then being on Staff, or Advisor, etc. (titles have changed numerous times) one of the things I brought up several times to newer moderators in the private section was to allow the forum to live and breathe...

Many of our moderators (with generally good intentions) - myself included (when I started out) did a bad job of moderating the board. We censored posts, deleted a lot of posts, threw out infractions like beads at Mardi Gras, and quickly banned a lot of people who were more "controversial."

This led to less discussion, since people thought they'd get infractions for "trolling."

Then, NamePros had a month of DDoS attacks, downtime, etc. which led to many people (including me) to finding other forums to spend their time at. That's something that, sadly, could not have been prevented.

Let conversations thrive, don't delete posts (unless they are obviously Xrumer spam), quit being so strict about what SEO services are sold, etc. It's not up to NamePros to protect the TOS of social bookmarking sites. It's up to those sites to deal with it.

If I want to pay for the most common SEO services, I can't order them on NamePros because they've all been deemed "black hat" (even though they are not).

Anyway - these are just a handful of ideas.

Oh, and simplify the board format. It's a gigantic mess and difficult on the eyes. Go back to how the board looked before.


My $0.02.

 

[Eric Lyon]

Thanks GF, this is something that's been discussed back and forth for Years (as you pointed out from your previous service at NamePros). It's something we are taking much more seriously these days after reviewing the drop in numbers over the years and the anaconda like grip it had on the forums. Literally squeezing the life out of them.

We are talking about this matter with other staff members in staff sections and providing suggestions one on one with them when situations come to our attention.

I'll look into the seo services section over the next few days to see what's going on in there.

As for the simplifying the board, I believe there's still future plans for a new theme and layout that will remedy that.

Eric Lyon

 

[Eric Lyon]

Update: Ok I'm looking over the SEO rules right now and it's broken down into Acceptable & Unacceptable categories. What exactly are we talking about in the blackhat industry that should be allowed? Below is a quote from that forums rules so we can easily look it over together.

Only white-hat services allowed. No black-hat, or any other colored hats.


Services that are allowed:

1) Directory submission

2) Article submission.

3) Forum posting. [Manual forum posting.]

4) Press release submission.

5) Real, manual genuine comments on behalf of a site owner are allowed.

6) Real, manual and genuine forum posting on behalf of a client in relevant forums is allowed.

7) Social Bookmarking is Allowed but only in their personal account. That is 1 account per 1 person and he can only bookmark a site in that account.

*Services that offer creating 100 social bookmarking accounts and pasting 100 links in each account is spam.


Services that are not allowed:

1) WHOIS Blast.

2) Comments Blast.

3) Forum profile creation.

4) Link wheels and other Social bookmarking sites.

5) Trackback blast.

6) Buying and selling of user accounts - No user accounts of any kind can be bought, sold or traded (including, but not limited to, MySpace, Facebook, RapidShare, eBay, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, etc.). This includes any services that promote the creation or sale of accounts in any forums, social networking sites, or anything else that involves the transfer of personal registration.
(Parking accounts are included)

7) Yahoo answers posting services.

8) Google +1, Digg first page service etc. Not allowed.
(Google and DIGG TOS prohibits this)

9) "Facebook Likes" or "Twitter Follow" incentives or services offering this feature are not permitted.
(FB and Twitter TOS prohibits this)

[All others services similar to this that might come in future will not be allowed.]


More services that will fall under this criteria will be removed and or added. Rules will be updated accordingly.

Personally, I'm up in the air (50/50) on some of these, I think my opinion might be a little bias though since combating spam is something we do daily here, so naturally those that see it and combat it every day are going to be cautious about saying it's ok to do.

I Look forward to your thoughts.

Eric Lyon

 

[SK1990]

Was just a thought, but it does seem that there's an influx of after sale editing leaving hundreds of threads empty. I can definitely see the desire to edit them out though (Search engines). So this probably wouldn't be something feasible in the marketplace to do.


Eric Lyon

The disallow editing could work even in market place if sales threads went straight to graveyard after or within 24 hrs of closing. It really doesn't benifit anyone to have closed sales threads visible anyways.

 

[GF]

4) Link wheels and other Social bookmarking sites.

7) Yahoo answers posting services.

8) Google +1, Digg first page service etc. Not allowed.
(Google and DIGG TOS prohibits this)

9) "Facebook Likes" or "Twitter Follow" incentives or services offering this feature are not permitted.
(FB and Twitter TOS prohibits this)

^^
Not sure how any of these services are "blackhat" - if you go to any other online forum you can purchase these services... Except NamePros.

 

[Eric Lyon]

4) Link wheels and other Social bookmarking sites.

7) Yahoo answers posting services.

8) Google +1, Digg first page service etc. Not allowed.
(Google and DIGG TOS prohibits this)

9) "Facebook Likes" or "Twitter Follow" incentives or services offering this feature are not permitted.
(FB and Twitter TOS prohibits this)

^^
Not sure how any of these services are "blackhat" - if you go to any other online forum you can purchase these services... Except NamePros.

The Google +1 & Facebook was decided to be prohibited by staff mainly because it's a violation of their terms of use to sell or participate such services, That means that an unsuspecting buyer may end up having their account terminated at google or facebook because of it. As for the LinkWheels and Yahoo Answers, I'll look more into it and see if there's a solution, maybe in how an offer is worded that can make a difference.

Eric Lyon

 

[matt_bodis]

threw out infractions like beads at Mardi Gras,

That sentence just made me laugh a little.

Although a serious issue. Thanks for the input.

 

[DU]

Viewer Statistics Comparisons

Matt and yourself care about viewer statistics. Some people with services or sales care about viewer statistics.

I care about contribution statistics and this is where NP has deteriorated over the time I've been here. Lots of reasons for this.

Influx of non-English speakers. While many have good English skills many are here posting single lines to include link bait sigs. It's a generalization and I do appreciate that for some English is a 2nd/3rd language... I'm only talking about the users that make posts 1-10 in a 2 hr period... I'm sure a lot sign up with email addresses of somethign @ qq.com

Departure of key people. For whatever reason. Mis_chiff is usually the excuse but there are other blogs, other venues, other things going on.

Too many question askers and not enough question answerers. This is the major problem. Too many people's first 5 posts are "Appraise this" and "How do I improve my SEO" etc.

After many members and staff pointed out that they feel NamePros is lacking in member participation......so we could compare actual numbers.

Participation and viewing not the same thing.

to help insure accuracy

Where NamePros is hurting is in the Guests Viewing area.

Accuracy from forum numbers? DNF with 3000 guests? Really? The user participation at DNF is pretty lousy today.

There's no point looking at a sinking boat and being satisfied that they're sinking faster!

That just an analogy - not saying either is actually sinking - but surely the goal should just be to make NP better? Who cares what DNF/DP is doing?

With that said it could be due to a number of factors such as but not limited to:

You left off "Their numbers aren't accurate"

how we can ethically rectify this small obstacle and start getting the fresh new guest viewers that the other communities are getting.

You want guests? That group can't post, can't buy, can't contribute.. can click ads if that's your goal.

Please keep in mind that Guest Viewers are potential buyers and sellers

If you have an external auction, I suppose.

Start NamePros Blogs - ONLY staff members, NP Supporters, & Business members may submit articles.

Will you pay? Give benefits? There's nothing to stop Staff doing this now. It's called making a post. I guess you could give a special area... are any of the staff interesting enough to pull this off?

Each article will allow 1 author link in the footer that is indexable by search engines in an effort to assist with the authors inbound link campaign as a thank you for the content contribution.

I guess that's the payment? A link? I can get that for free with one line posts and a signature.

Encourage People to post more than just one liners (e.g. Thanks for info, I like it, ty, I learned a lot, interesting, etc.)

Moderating nightmare. Bad end user experience. Other solutions to this - send a PM.

[*]Start a more rewarding referral Program for site Owners / Bloggers and provide a set of banners they may use. Prizes for Top referrers of the month might be things like: Free 1 month account upgrade, Free 1 month Sticky Thread in marketplace, Free 1 Month forum sponsorship, etc..

Now you're getting thinking. Real incentives for people to do something. Real advertising.

If you have some more ideas for us, we are all ears and look forward to your suggestions.

Where are all the improvements ?
Where did all the previous suggestions go?

How about providing some of that feedback before just asking for more.

[Update] I saw that the smart JB Lions already asked and you answered - missed this first scan through.

I like the forum, I like you Scorp. but I haven't seen anything change in what? At all.. maybe I'm not observant. Help me out with this.

One suggestion: We can't post pictures in the Adult break room? Huh? Why not?

---------- Post added at 10:44 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:35 PM ----------

4) Link wheels and other Social bookmarking sites.

Not sure how any of these services are "blackhat" - if you go to any other online forum you can purchase these services... Except NamePros.

Using the definition

"SEO strategies, techniques and tactics that focus only on search engines and not a human audience"

Link wheels are black hat. Google hates them. You will be delisted.

What you can get on other forums is irrelevant. I could buy stolen credit cards on some.. and download hacked accounts on others.

How come I can't post GoDaddy userid/passwords on Namepros?

---------- Post added at 10:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 10:44 PM ----------

Three more things.

Can we get rid of Political Sigs? And avatars of Che Guevara? and of all TM names in sales threads? J/K

 

[Domagon]

Kinda surprised my comment #5 was totally ignored regarding lack of depth of NamePros itself.

A forum only site these days, unless it's covering a cutting edge topic (which domaining isn't; it's old very hat) with few to no similar discussion anywhere, is likely doomed to irrelevance...

Remember newsgroups - great system (superior in many respects to web forums despite being less graphical), but between spam and the web, most passed newsgroups by... similar is happening with forums - many people rely on social networking sites.

A prime example, not even related to domaining, is Websleuths (Crime Discussion Forums) - there was (still is?) an entire sub-section there regarding the disappearance of Baby Lisa - the discussion was very active with numerous threads, many with hundreds of replies, and yet to the surprise of many, including some of the mods, there were many similar discussions on Facebook that were even more active with many thousands of replies in matter of hours - and more to the point, some of the discussion on the Websleuths forums seemed behind / parroting what was already discussed on Facebook. And furthermore, many Facebook users, even when made aware (or even were already members) of Websleuths forums, choose to keep much of the discussion within Facebook.

Rambling on, but it seems to me that Namepros should be looking beyond just being a forum. Quality content and services combined with the forums would raise NamePros above the rest.

Ron

 

[ngenme]

If guests is the issue, one thing you you can do is to set up translation plugin like es5.com the owner is an seo expert. Looks like translation plugin is no longer installed there. I've seen a forum that have a spanish, chinese, etc. version of it.

Make sure every posts in namepros are translated into many many many different languages. In wordpress we have global translator plugin. Not sure about forum.

If you have powerful servers, that'll improve search engine traffic and hence guests.

Another way is affiliate program. How much each free member of namepros worth to you Set up affiliates, and I know many many ways to get high quality traffic at cheap price. I just need something to make them "sticky" and worth paying. It could be a very interesting article, or some step by step how to get rich (if you sign up to the forum you'll get free e-book, which will encourage discussion, etc.

That's 2 on top of my head. There several variants on this.

 

[Eric Lyon]

@ Defaultuser
Please keep in mind that Guests = Fresh new potential members, without guests we would have a closed community and would never grow. We rely on new guest viewers to become new buyers / sellers on namepros. I think the majority of namepros that uses the marketplace would agree we need more buyers, to do this, we have to pull more new guest viewers in order to achieve new member registrations. While I do agree we need more member participation, closing Namepros down to a members only club is not an option at this time, we still need our guests.

Most of the changes have been on a technical end and weren't posted publicly, however many were in different areas that may have been quickly buried and overlooked. I've added a small list below just to recap a few things that have been done since I moved into administration. Please keep in mind that we are constantly working behind the scenes to better NamePros and that regrettably we can't do every single persons suggestions as lots will contradict another change.

Just a few changes that I am able to share publicly
1.) Member Services received a new training guide and Moderators training guides were updated.
2.) Instruction guide on how to detect copyright infringing images was added for staff in the design area.
3.) Username inconsistency's repaired with a database tables update.
4.) NP$ for domain registration was removed from the FAQ since we havent offered it in years.
5.) Staff meetings continue to be held every Tue. for those able to attend.
6.) New Tech Support member "DomainReseller" came aboard to assist with complex tech related issues. (New tech Badge identifies our techs)
7.) All forums have been set to "Show All Posts" instead of the previous 30 day hiding feature.
8.) We are currently seeking more Moderators. Please note that all moderators volunteer knowing it's a none paid position and receive Business Membership privileges as part of their compensation. Most do it just to help namepros and not for money.
9.) Visitor messages New members get welcoming them to NamePros have been changed to come from Michelle instead of NPQ.
10.) Badges for contests, techs, and paid subscriptions are linked to their respective page / forum to make navigating easier. It's just more handy if someone see's a tech & remembers an issue & can simply click his badge to be taken to tech support so they can start a report.
11.) .Mobi / VIP / .Tv marketplaces were moved out of general discussion and into the general marketplace.
12.) External sales / auction forums were merged into 1 forum
13.) Comments / Bumps addendum was updated and added to all the sections rules.
14.) Over-Moderating has been addressed and we are working on more ways to make things easier on both members & staff.
15.) Upgrade & Design Contest banners have been added to a couple sections for added inhouse promotion.
16.) Section Leaders were given the added ability to reverse infractions in the event Moderators & or Members need assistance with an dispute found to be accidental or unwarranted.
17.) the 2 Large .us threads were merged into 1 "Official" thread to be consistent with other cctld official threads.
18.) More marketplace forums have now been set to allow members to close their own threads. (If you come across one that still doesn't allow it, please let us know.. keeping in mind design contests & auction Only staff can close for obvious reasons)
19.) We are currently working on a new automated advertising system. There's currently no ETA on when it will be completed, but it "is" in development.
20.) Scripts for sale section is now open and no longer required thread clearing. A disclaimer has been added to the header reminding members all sellers are 3rd party and it's the buyers responsibility to do their own research prior to purchasing a script.
21.) A guide has been published for staff on how to handle duplicate accounts to help avoid wrongful account closures of genuine members with good intentions (such as but not limited to: office co-workers, Room-Mates, College students, free wi-fi point access that many people use, etc.)
22.) Mod App Rules that new applicants agree to before submitting their application has been updated.

The above are just a small handful of things that have been done in the last 2 weeks. Please keep in mind that change takes time and we can't accomplish everything as fast as some would like us to. We are listening to all of you and taking your suggestions into account. Please don't take offense if we are unable to act or respond to your suggestions immediately.

@ Domagon
Your suggestion wasn't ignored, please note my comment on suggestions in the paragraph above. Thanks for your suggestions.

teguh123
Thanks for your suggestions.

@ Everyone
We do appreciate all the time and suggestions you have all put forth and will continue to evaluate each one of them.

Eric Lyon

 

[DU]

@ Defaultuser
Please keep in mind that Guests = Fresh new potential members

I understand this but doing a comparison of guests night after night does nothing. The metric you want is guest conversion.

without guests we would have a closed community and would never grow.

Without guests you have what you have now - just with less people that are viewing and not contributing anyway.

We rely on new guest viewers to become new buyers / sellers on namepros.

At least the business model is coming through loud and clear. This will be encouraging for the reseller value domainers.

5.) NP$ for domain registration was removed from the FAQ since we havent offered it in years.

I think Fonzie said some of the suggestions from users were tantamount to re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. I guess we're going to update the rules on how to use the deckchairs as we bear down on an iceberg.

The only people that read the FAQ are those who have a grudge to bear against some mods. I won't name names.

6.) Staff meetings continue to be held every Tue. for those able to attend.

Sounds like good planning.

all moderators volunteer knowing it's a none paid position

So it's unpaid.

Most do it just to help namepros and not for money.

Some do it for the money?

Visitor messages New members get welcoming them to NamePros have been changed to come from
Michelle instead of NPQ.

And not the owner - that's an interesting choice. Doesn't mean anything just think it's strange

We are currently working on a new automated advertising system. There's currently no ETA on when it will be completed, but it "is" in
development.

Well that's sure got me excited. I can't wait for a new advertising system to be in place.

I'm not going to say that you're not doing anything .. or that things don't take time... but from my perspective (and a few others).. nothing's changed for the better and in some cases for the worse.

Anyway. With you and everyone involved with NP good fortune.