One change that might displease many

Equally Rob, I hope some day soon you are successful enough to have the time to give freely.

 

Just some food for thought:
"It’s all very well looking at how to repackage an existing product or how to present a particular service in such a way as to make it irresistible over the long term but it can often be even more effective to develop a product that requires the long-term involvement of your customers in the first place. Setting up a recurring program, or what is sometimes referred to as a residual income program, enables you to do just that."
I am assuming that the members fall under the category of customers.
Should you want to know the title of the reference - The Customer Magnet

 

Sorry to hear about your rankings for the Forum. I think if you put a like button here, we can like it in FB, Twitter, etc. and hopefully help. Of course, at the end of the day, you need to do what is best for your Forum - as you say it is your bread and butter.

 

Like, Tweet, and Share buttons are at the bottom of the pages, just scroll down farther.
There are also Share buttons in the right hand column of the home page.
Please like and share wherever you can whenever you feel inclined.

 

Thanks for pointing them out to me Just2EZ. I shall do the needful.

 

I can't but help agree with RobPenn. I think most people come onto Forums and participate with the hope that they will get some action when people see their signature. At the end of the day if our businesses are not going to be any the better for our time here - would most of us really keep logging in and participating in discussions. I know, that I for one, find it hard enough to find the time to come on occassionally even though I know that my signature will be viewed if I do... I also agree with Rob that I and I think most of us would be happy to help by linking and liking this site on FB and other such good media sites. Sorry Vishal that you are having a rough time. Just hang in there and tell us how best we can help bring up your ratings.

 

Curious,

So with all these months to evaluate this change, what have you discovered? Ranking have continued to drop for all blogs and forums, it has nothing to do with signatures in my experience, it is the constant attack by Google's zoo which is impacting rankings for all of us.

I was on first page o Google rankings for several years, and everytime they released another animal, I got knocked off and had to start all over again on SEO strategies to combat changes. The penquin attack took me much longer than the panda attack to get back on top of search ranking results for my keywords, months of tweaking, so I know the pain the Google's zoo has on all of us.

Simply put, Google is not going to stop attacking the search results, but with every change, there will be counter attack changes we can make, but how many will take the time required to regain their search rankings given it takes more and more time on SEO than it may be worth for most. For past three months I have been number one and two on search, but what I have learned is not to make any updates to my site this time around for fear of tripping Google's attack on my content since we don't know what they are doing behind scenes.

No doubt, these changes have hurt millions, and it appears to me blogs and forums which had ranked high no longer do, so where does this forum stand now in rankings? I know it use to rank much higher for categories posted, but this has all changed over the past six months or so I have been researching ranking of forums. I don't even bother posting as much as before changes given so little return on my investment of time. Time is money, and forums worked great for years to increase exposure, but as I see it, forums are all on steep decline in post volume, but I guess you already know this given the changes you made with regards to signatures. Any updates on results of your changes would be helpful.

Good luck to all,

 

I have been an Internet SEO and marketing professional since the beginning of the Internet. Was doing this before Google was around. I have watched the game Goodle plays, fighting the SEO pros, and looking for improved search results for the visitors. But this time, I am actually noticing a decrease in the quality of my SERPs. I mean when I am searching for something. What about others?

I have also determined that content and back links are still important, but also authorities, confirmed authorities are now being evaluated in conjunction with the content and back links. If you have a lot of content produced by authorities, the relevant content and back links will carry credibility. However, especially like forums, their is a large population of non authorities posting cyber trash and links, then you get sand boxed.

This is even looking true with facial recognition technologies being employed.

I believe this explains why many forums are dropping in ranks, because the typical forum is filled with false names and accounts.

Thomas Prendergast

 

I agree with you, Tom. Especially after the last algorithm change, Google's results have been less helpful. I'm not sure what they changed, but I find myself clicking through to 3 or 4 pages to find what I was really searching for, when I am certain that before it was usually on page 1.

If you want a forum or a chat room, you have to search for those terms with your search. I have traveled internationally for several years now, and you get the most truth about a location from expat forums about each location and some funny stories as well.

 

Why not restrict a signature to having only one URL in it? I know that is possible with WordPress sites and the usual Spam Plugins can trap comments with more 1 link quite easily.

Can you implement something similar?

I see many members have more than 1 URL in their signatures and I feel that is going overboard.