Activity Slow Down

[Woody_393]

I'm not sure how many of you have noticed that the forums have slowed down considerably since Wednesday, but I have and more than likely a lot of you have noticed it too.

After trying to figure out why, I discovered that for some reason (not yet known) Google has dropped 2/3rds of our pages from its index. We used to have 60,000+ and now only have 21,000 and some change.

Normally this might not be a big deal, but those indexed pages bring new members, and a lot traffic that we might not otherwise see.

In an effort to figure out why this happened and help optimize our search engine rankings, I've began consulting with a SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Expert. He has me doing some monitoring of statistics and some tweaking to the forums, most of which you wouldn't be interested in hearing about and I won't bother boring you with the details. However, one of the suggestions might affect you.

It's been suggested that I lower the number of recent threads to 10 (that's the list of new and active threads on the portal page -- All Things Moto! Web Forums). I know this might be painful for some (including myself) so I've agreed to lower it to 20 (from 40) -- I may still need to low it further to 10.

In an effort to help deal (to some this won't be a big deal) with this new lower number, I suggest using the "New Posts" link in the lower navigation bar instead. It will return all new and active threads since your last visit, and will actually give you more results then the portal would have.

Anyway, I apologize for the inconvenience while I try to figure out how and why I've offended google.

Also, you'll probably notice some other minor changes as I work with the SEO expert to try and optimize

Thanks to all of you for helping make what it is today. Hopefully we can continue that trend.

[Aus_Rider_22]

Thanks for the heads up, Woody.

I will use the "recent posts" link from now on. Don't know why I had never used it before!

[kenyz]

I always use the new posts button. Me hate the portal raaaa.
I hope his optimization services didnt cost you too much Woodman :P

[Woody_393]

Thanks both of you.

As far as the cost, it's costing me a lot to have the google stuff broken. This way I at least get some optimization from it, which will hopefully help in the long run.

[kenyz]

When you figure out why google gave you the middle finger post it up.
How much bandwidth does ATM run / month anywho...if you can say?

[Woody_393]

I will if it's information that I think I should/can share.

We use some where in the neighborhood of 200GB a month.

[kenyz]

oh 200gb thats not too spendy phew


gluck Woody

[Woody_393]

It's not more than I get already, so it's not a concern at all.