CODForums experiencing growth.

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Carlos

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It has been almost 2 weeks since I moved CODForums to xenForo. Recently I added the site back into Yahoo Explorer and Google Webmaster, I had realized it's a perfect time to do it because it takes a long time for a search engine to re-index a site. But not with xenForo! O_O

xfCODForums.webp

Just yesterday, CODForums saw a traffic spike - 222 visitors came to the site via keywords and google. Why? Because Google ranked CODForums at #1 for the COD Forums keyword, followed by CODForums, obviously. Last night, I did more research. I learned that CODForums is ranking #1 for CODForum - that's with out the "S" in there! That's at least from my research... It feels like a promising future for my site now more than ever.

While on vB4, my site ranked lower, and that's with vBSEO installed. vB4 could never do this for me, just look at the trend before the switch... Just embarrassing, absolutely embarrassing and disheartening since the site used to do so well in vB3/vBSEO. I look at the past stats on my server, CODForums hovered around the 100,000 visitor(s) mark.

I can't imagine how it will look like when Modern Warfare 3 finally releases on store shelves this November.

I spent over 1 thousand dollars on the domain and the future of the site looks very bright, and the site is using a generic, standard xf skin. This is barely scratching the surface.
 
Looks promising. You'll have to post us an update in a month or so's time, in case this is an initial "burst" as Google grabs a big chunk of you changed/new site.

Have you seen an increase in posting or new member registration at all yet?

Still, it would appear that XF pages have a good propensity for being indexed well.

Cheers,
Shaun :D
 
Looks promising. You'll have to post us an update in a month or so's time, in case this is an initial "burst" as Google grabs a big chunk of you changed/new site.
Will do! :)
Have you seen an increase in posting or new member registration at all yet?
Some. I haven't e-mailed the posters yet, I wanted to see how traffic would be if I had left it alone, that screencap shows beginning signs of growth not only because I posted the thread here, but return visitors have been coming back a bit more than usual, the equilibrium that has been showing on xF's side is far more telling then vbulletin's - yesterday's spike had nothing to do with marketing, at all. I wasn't using facebook all that much, nor twitter. I did both midnight last night, and into the morning and afternoon.
Still, it would appear that XF pages have a good propensity for being indexed well.
Indeedy! :)
 
Congrats Carlos, as I have said before too XF's on page SEO is excellent. XF follows wikipedia's method of pushing content at top of html output by using a proxy header at top. This by itself is a brilliant on-page SEO move. Again the use of semantic html and header tags makes sure that bots can always figure out what the page is about and where content is.
 
That looks promising Carlos.

Did you do a redirect from your old URLS to new? I've seen a massive drop in traffic but I'm putting that down to not redirecting to the new URLS in htaccess and not having a site map. Since yesterday I've installed the sitemap plugin so I'm hoping to build traffic back up again.

Should I do the redirection?
 
Did you do a redirect from your old URLS to new? I've seen a massive drop in traffic but I'm putting that down to not redirecting to the new URLS in htaccess and not having a site map. Since yesterday I've installed the sitemap plugin so I'm hoping to build traffic back up again.

Should I do the redirection?
That's the beautiful thing. I didn't install any redirection at all. I held off because I was stuck with what to do with it. But alas, nobody has a response for it.

What I suggest doing is adding your site to all major search engines' individual site adders - I just named two above: Yahoo Explorer, and Google Webmaster Tool(s).
 
I'm reasonably new to google webmasters tools, what did you do exactly?
When I was on vB4, I had already added CODForums to Google Webmaster.

When I switched to xenForo, I deleted the site from Google Webmaster....

webCODForums.webp

Step one: Click that checkbox on the left of the website url. Then click that Delete button.

Once deleted, your site should disappear now...

Step two: Re-add the site using the "Add a Site" button.

It may be simple, but it actually tells google to "re-index my site please!" Wait a few days or weeks for the re-indexing to occur, and update. Even though that the wait may be long, you've done this ahead of time. So, by the time Google finishes indexing your site, your new URL's appear, too.

This goes double for Yahoo Explorer because once you delete the old explorer indexes, it's GONE. So, when you re-add your site, the algorithm indexes your new ones automatically, and you're able to see the new URL's for yourself.
 
When I was on vB4, I had already added CODForums to Google Webmaster.

When I switched to xenForo, I deleted the site from Google Webmaster....

View attachment 18085

Step one: Click that checkbox on the left of the website url. Then click that Delete button.

Once deleted, your site should disappear now...

Step two: Re-add the site using the "Add a Site" button.

It may be simple, but it actually tells google to "re-index my site please!" Wait a few days or weeks for the re-indexing to occur, and update. Even though that the wait may be long, you've done this ahead of time. So, by the time Google finishes indexing your site, your new URL's appear, too.

This goes double for Yahoo Explorer because once you delete the old explorer indexes, it's GONE. So, when you re-add your site, the algorithm indexes your new ones automatically, and you're able to see the new URL's for yourself.
I don't think I want to delete and re-add. Thought there might be a way to delete specific links.
 
I don't think I want to delete and re-add. Thought there might be a way to delete specific links.
With Yahoo Explorer, you can, but not with google, at least from what I see.

I would "delete then re-add" only when I want google to re-index the site based on URL structure changes. Hence the change between vb4 and xenforo.

I'm not sure if your site recently changed URL structures... so I can't comment further.
 
We changed from vb3.8 -> in January.

I think I will leave it for the time being, I am learning much with regards to these types of things.
 
Well, I am glad I was able to help you, Dean. :) :D

I have been sailing much faster than I had anticipated. Visitors are using xF's search feature a lot. That makes me happy because whatever I'm writing is now being searched more than ever before. I check the google analytics again and I see codforums catching more keywords, including MW3-related keywords. This is good, in fact, it's bringing me more visitors-converting-into-registration.

With vB4, and vBSEO, I could never catch these keywords. It's always the CODForums-related keywords every last one of them, even typos. While it's "okay," I don't really want this so when I was on vB4, I would get really frustrated that the keyword density isn't there. I want more MW3 keywords being used for the site. I want to capture the Call of Duty market.

So, with xenforo, the search engines are reacting positively - and even more so, especially with "Call of Duty" slapped on top of it. I think search engines are very happy with what I did, it feels like a "fist bump" right now.
 
It has been a month. Today is October 3rd.

Here are the results:

CODForumsXF.webp

The vB4 instance was a vBSuite license, with vBSEO installed [the latest version]. xF has been grabbing more keywords per day, and on September 27th, I published an article about Mule Kick Perk-A-Cola launches in all Zombie maps the traffic spiked so sharply. In just one day. I didn't have to wait.

The trend for CODForums has been very steady, and every day that goes by, it seems to be growing.

More and more people are using the xenforo search function. Hopefully, the stats manager in xF 1.1 can tell us which keywords are being searched on xF's search engine. What's more is that I'm seeing MORE registrations than when the site was on vBulletin.

Just keep in mind, I'm not using Twitter, or Facebook much. ;) CODForums seems to have strong SEO, much stronger than any other COD website out there. I hope I can catch up with regards to registration to compete in the same league as my competition.

As for the skin, I'm using a stock xF skin until I can match, or find a skin better than this.
 
Almost another month, any update? Can you show your registration stats?
Here is the overview:
codfgrowth.webp

That lil' bump at the far right side of the image means that the steam for MW3 is picking up. MW3Blog is currently grabbing 1,000 views per day.

As for the registration stats, here is the old one. Today CODForums has 2,265 members.

2,265 minus
2,133 equals
132 members difference.

I banned a few members here and there for spamming, that would put the site at 2270+
 
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Okay, a quick update:

Today is November 9th, right now is 1:32am. I am posting these stats because yesterday was Modern Warfare 3's worldwide launch, and CODForums soared:

CODForumsStats.webp

Just an FYI. This is with NO marketing. I was playing COD4, and Arkham City throughout yesterday.
 
It has been 6 months since I last posted growth update.

Milestone #1: CODForums reaches 20,000 unique visitors.

Milestone #2: I become the first person to reach 1,000 posts.

Milestone #3: CODForums reaches 5,000 posts.

Current forum stats:

1,516 Discussions
5,000 Messages
2,578 Members

And on top of that, rumors and speculation of Black Ops 2's impending announcement sees CODForums spiking:

CODForums20k.webp
 
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