12-11-2020, 10:28 PM
I see several good discussion comments coming from this thread here so I thought maybe it would be beneficial to continue in its own topic. I'll quote a few comments; forgive me if I don't include specific @ mentions.
I took the initiative to run a free SEO audit. The results weren't terrible - 76/100, but still plenty of room for improvement. There were 17 critical flags, all of which were the same: duplicate titles. I imagine it has something to do with the forum software (mybb if I'm not mistaken?) and the theme used. Without looking at the backend, I don't know exactly how to fix it, but there should be a way. I guess google likes it better if each page has a unique title, rather than all pages having the same title.
I can definitely see the benefit of this, if I'm understanding correctly. Gigarocket was set up much the same way - with a landing page and a few other pages describing the services offered and requirements for obtaining them, legal pages, as well as links to the community/forums. Maybe we could run the forums on a subdomain/directory and use a wordpress blog or some small flat file cms (like grav?) to create the "pillar" pages for post4vps.
A brilliant suggestion, if we can sort out a way to implement this effectively. I use a plugin on my wordpress blog to cross post weekly to my facebook page - but it can be scheduled/programmed in different ways. For example, to only post from a specific category, to post the most recent, or choose at random. The plugin I'm referring to is called "Revive Old Posts" and can be found at https://revive.social/
It's licensed GPL 2 so it's okay to modify for your own purpose.
I wonder if a similar plugin exists that could be used with the forums at p4v, or if the plugin could be modified to work here. In lieu of automation it could turn into a bit of work once a month to keep a few social sites current with giveaways, etc, but still very possible, and also maybe a good idea for someone willing to work for a second vps or substitute some of their posting requirements.
A valid point. Perhaps the script that counts/scores the posts could be made to sort through this information as well. If it were, there would be a possibility to create a minimum credit_point over post_amount for a post to be credited, encouraging better posting over time. Of course it'd have to be set up to not count posts in off-topic areas. The downside of this is that it may discourage some people from trying to post here: particularly persons that aren't very strong in English and may feel insecure about making a long post with deep explanations. As a note I'd like to add that I appreciate very much the non-native English speakers that post here. Your task is double difficult: not only do you have to make quality posts, you have to do it in a language in which you aren't completely comfortable. Cheers to those that make the effort through the struggle.
You raise an interesting point here, and I really want to drive it home. Now considering we have a few VPS that are really high specs and probably would sell for easily 20-30 VPS, and we have a lot of smaller ones worth easy 5-10$ a month. And over 20 vps not doing anything... I could ballpark it and say there's easily 2-3k a year in vps that could be doing something... anything at all. If you think about it like that was your money, in your wallet... 2-3000$ USD going to waste, doing nothing. Who among us would squander so much for no gain?
With the recent loss of gigarocket, there's a big empty hole in the free hosting market. Perhaps we could snatch up a piece of it? One of the nicer vps could be set up for shared hosting, and we could offer it to members in addition to a vps... perhaps with a posting requirement of 1 good post a week for a decent shared hosting package, enough to host a small-medium sized blog. Of course this suggestion comes with a lot of work involved - work for the moderators with a new category of posters to track, as well as a lot of admin work to set up the shared hosting service. But it's just an idea for discussion. Maybe it would be a fun community project for a few dedicated individuals
In my opinion, the ads are very minimal. That's how the site makes money. While no one wants to visit a forum overburdened with ads, I think p4v could handle a few more without being distasteful. Just my opinion.
Another option would be affiliate marketting. Like anything else, there's a bit of work involved. One would have to search through the providers list, determine which ones have an affiliate reseller plan, sign up, etc etc. However, it could work - If the affiliate accounts are properly set up, you could even give members an affiliate link to share rather than the vanilla link to their providers, if a web site is hosted. Sales that are created through member sites would then be credited to p4v and used to offset hosting costs or maybe even get a small paycheck on occasion.
Quote:I wonder the forum structure giving wrong vibes to Google search bots. Because we have about 36 boards under 6 forums i think. Only one forum has the word " VPS " and none has important keyword phrases like free VPS, Free Hosting etc. Word 'VPS' is mention it about 9 boards out of 36. Same goes for board descriptions. I don't see words like Web Hosting, VPS Hosting at all. Same goes for Title tag and Meta Description tag which is too long and says Free VPS too many times plus has no other related phrases.
I took the initiative to run a free SEO audit. The results weren't terrible - 76/100, but still plenty of room for improvement. There were 17 critical flags, all of which were the same: duplicate titles. I imagine it has something to do with the forum software (mybb if I'm not mistaken?) and the theme used. Without looking at the backend, I don't know exactly how to fix it, but there should be a way. I guess google likes it better if each page has a unique title, rather than all pages having the same title.
Quote:Another thing is I think the forum need few pillar type pages about important keywords we are targeting. For example a page for 'Free Game Server Hosting' with lots of details about game servers how to get a free one here, or getting cheap one from one of our sponsors and game server related urls, common problems etc. Pages like these will rank well in Google search and attract more new members.
I can definitely see the benefit of this, if I'm understanding correctly. Gigarocket was set up much the same way - with a landing page and a few other pages describing the services offered and requirements for obtaining them, legal pages, as well as links to the community/forums. Maybe we could run the forums on a subdomain/directory and use a wordpress blog or some small flat file cms (like grav?) to create the "pillar" pages for post4vps.
Quote: Also a better social media presence. Like details of monthly give aways should be posted in FB fan page etc.
A brilliant suggestion, if we can sort out a way to implement this effectively. I use a plugin on my wordpress blog to cross post weekly to my facebook page - but it can be scheduled/programmed in different ways. For example, to only post from a specific category, to post the most recent, or choose at random. The plugin I'm referring to is called "Revive Old Posts" and can be found at https://revive.social/
It's licensed GPL 2 so it's okay to modify for your own purpose.
I wonder if a similar plugin exists that could be used with the forums at p4v, or if the plugin could be modified to work here. In lieu of automation it could turn into a bit of work once a month to keep a few social sites current with giveaways, etc, but still very possible, and also maybe a good idea for someone willing to work for a second vps or substitute some of their posting requirements.
Quote:Now for the post quality. Okay! here we can't expect everyone to comply with that all the time, but we can see a pattern on how much hard they're trying over time. A look at the ratio of Credit_point over total_posts will tell you a lot about that. Simple unmistakable Math.
A valid point. Perhaps the script that counts/scores the posts could be made to sort through this information as well. If it were, there would be a possibility to create a minimum credit_point over post_amount for a post to be credited, encouraging better posting over time. Of course it'd have to be set up to not count posts in off-topic areas. The downside of this is that it may discourage some people from trying to post here: particularly persons that aren't very strong in English and may feel insecure about making a long post with deep explanations. As a note I'd like to add that I appreciate very much the non-native English speakers that post here. Your task is double difficult: not only do you have to make quality posts, you have to do it in a language in which you aren't completely comfortable. Cheers to those that make the effort through the struggle.
Quote:The value in VPS that one can get here far exceeds the time it takes to write those posts. Imagine a VPS with 8GB RAM, 2 cores, and 100 GB disk space. How much would that cost in a month and how expensive would the 20 posts be in comparison time wise? The VPS I have would be a minimum of 25-30 US$ a month.
We have a whole cache of VPSs that are not working for any one. We need to do something with those.
You raise an interesting point here, and I really want to drive it home. Now considering we have a few VPS that are really high specs and probably would sell for easily 20-30 VPS, and we have a lot of smaller ones worth easy 5-10$ a month. And over 20 vps not doing anything... I could ballpark it and say there's easily 2-3k a year in vps that could be doing something... anything at all. If you think about it like that was your money, in your wallet... 2-3000$ USD going to waste, doing nothing. Who among us would squander so much for no gain?
Quote:So Google Algo probably thinks this forum is not directly connect to web hosting but just a General Forum with web hosting part. We don't even have boards about Web Hosting generally.
With the recent loss of gigarocket, there's a big empty hole in the free hosting market. Perhaps we could snatch up a piece of it? One of the nicer vps could be set up for shared hosting, and we could offer it to members in addition to a vps... perhaps with a posting requirement of 1 good post a week for a decent shared hosting package, enough to host a small-medium sized blog. Of course this suggestion comes with a lot of work involved - work for the moderators with a new category of posters to track, as well as a lot of admin work to set up the shared hosting service. But it's just an idea for discussion. Maybe it would be a fun community project for a few dedicated individuals
Quote:On the other hand there is also the deeper dimension of being a contributing member of a community of VPS Holders, who like to help one another, and also would like to support the owner, Dynamo, so the business can continue. If anything should happen similar to freevps.us, it will be a huge loss to me as I really love my VPS. I also like the quality support from our specialist members and am learning from every one on a daily basis.
In my opinion, the ads are very minimal. That's how the site makes money. While no one wants to visit a forum overburdened with ads, I think p4v could handle a few more without being distasteful. Just my opinion.
Another option would be affiliate marketting. Like anything else, there's a bit of work involved. One would have to search through the providers list, determine which ones have an affiliate reseller plan, sign up, etc etc. However, it could work - If the affiliate accounts are properly set up, you could even give members an affiliate link to share rather than the vanilla link to their providers, if a web site is hosted. Sales that are created through member sites would then be credited to p4v and used to offset hosting costs or maybe even get a small paycheck on occasion.