Carlos - I can't say I like N4G's attitude so much. True a good structured articles is much easier to navigate and looks much more organized. But there's no reason to look down on good articles just because they're on forum. That kind of elitist attitude really disgust me. The most useful gaming information I've read are on gamefaqs' forum.
Try being the owner of a gaming forum. Its frustrating, if you had seen my N4G submissions that were rejected, you would ssee a few of them being on a forum.
Secondly, as for GameFAQ's, do yourself a favor and not mention that exact comment to anyone on any game site, because some sites, most gamers think that GameFAQ's forum members are idiots. In fact, NeoGAF shuns any information from GameFAQ's so be careful. I am just telling you as FYI basis, you don't want negative backlash.
Thirdly, I mentioned this before. N4G isn't the only site or community that shuns forum posts as "legit source of information." Game companies, whether its a game developer, whether its a game publisher...it doesn't matter, they don't see forums as the best place to get information.
IMO I like TeamXbox for their fast-paced coverage. Something new pops up, it's there in a matter of hours. And their site design says "ooo Xbox" all over it (I meant this to be a compliment). I don't quite agree that the cms itself really help anything that much....
Not from the SEO point of view, but users SEE your site as serious when you have custom-made CMS like TeamXbox. If you disagree, fine, but that
is fact.
I am listening but I think you're missing the point and not seeing the potential. You could (easily?) set Jaxel's portal up to look like a "custom CMS" where the end user would have no idea that it was actually Xenforo running it all begin the scenes. Throw a few grand at one of the superb skin designers on here (which I assume you'd do anyway if the design of the site is so crucial) and make a big donation to Jaxel and I'd imagine you could get a very professional looking "custom CMS" running with XF as the backend.
I'm missing the point? No. You are. I am seeing the potential of a forum post as article. Jaxel's CMS, so far has shown me that it points the article from the mainpage to the forum posts themselves, that's what I have seen so far.
Maybe agree to disagree on this one
Its not about disagreements. You really aren't paying attention.
- I said that its okay to have a forum post act like an article.
- I said people don't take your site seriously if you are using articles
on a forum.
- I said gaming companies, media corporations (doesn't matter which industry), and N4G
will not take your site seriously
if your article is on a forum, and will shun your site as a reliable source.
You say this... just as I check N4G and see that the big major article at the top of the page... is a vb4 forum.
I submitted a few reviews, a few previews on my forums when it was on beautiful vb3. It was not on a CMS, like most of the articles posted on N4G using vb4's vbCMS.
Just a week or two ago, I saw a
forum post being approved on N4G, which is bull$#!^! Because all this time, my ideal forum network would have gotten 4000 views in a single day. That's how much I got from one of mw3blog's submissions.
All that I posted in this thread were from my personal experiences. You guys have no idea how frustrating it is... You guys have no idea what kinds of pitfalls are if you guys do exactly what you want to do. I have tried
EVERY single idea in the book.
I ran an xbox website with a friend of mine - and I have been submitting each and every one of his articles, most of them are TOP stories. One of them is my very own Metal Gear Rising article. And likewise, most of the articles get linkbacks, which is something
you want if you want to get to the top of google rankings. Game Companies also quoted this same site, it was on a magazine for cripes sakes. No money required. This means that the site's reputation is beyond
legendary.
Keep in mind, the xbox website was using a custom CMS that allowed us to post news with game info, game screeshots, game previews, and reviews. The site was also using a custom URL structure.
I have tried posting articles on my forums. N4G approved only one of them, but the rest - its in the
failed bin. I have tried marketing the posts on twitter, they all shun it.
Now, at this point I re-focused the strategy and put my own multiplatform blog as a testing ground. Seeing what works, and what doesn't. One year later, it has accumlated 6000 views in that year. That's with the ugly url structure that comes out of the box of wordpress. Some of the articles were posted on N4G, none got close to the top 5 hottest stories.
I ran another test - one vb4 forum classic, and one xenforo instance - both weren't successful even though its got MW2 on it. The xenforo one was right at the top of google, regardless of any marketing. Top keywords were MW2Forums/MW2 Forums. The vB4 one is the one that's supposed to be successful, and ironically the one the the most cash behind it.
I purchased an ad on a Black Ops website [nevermind that its Black Ops, its a call of duty community], and put vbSEO on top of my forum classic. No good results. Even with the marketing already done.
I ran yet another test - MVC3Forum. I focused all of my marketing tactics on that site alone, and on each article, 10,000+ pageviews in just 2 short months. 7000+ visitors and uniques in just 2 and a half months. This is with SEO URL's turned on. Fastest growing website that I have done thus far until....
I purchased MW3Blog and am now getting 20,000 views in just 2 and a half months alone. 15,000+ visits and uniques so far.
This is wordpress with SEO URL's turned on.
MW3Blog stands as one of the best websites or ventures that I have invested because of the numbers, AND I actually managed to get one of the stories to the top 5 hottest stories.
Proof.
