ForumDirectory.com

[Davyc]

That's working now - can access the site

 

[frm]

That's working now - can access the site

Well, I still can't. So, stand by to stand by if you're waiting for a forum of yours to be added!

 

[Basenotes]

Hey, I've only just seen this, and really love it. (went to add my site, but it seems you've already got it)

I love looking at other forums and seeing what ideas they have, so I'm loving the random button too!

Maybe consider making some buttons for people to link to, something like (it's a bit small, but I was going for the classic 88x31 look):

 

[frm]

Hey, I've only just seen this, and really love it. (went to add my site, but it seems you've already got it)

A lot are still to be added. But, I am slowly dripping them in now over weeks/months instead of chunks of 10-20 a day, as that may have contributed to the drop in Google ranking.

Thanks for the idea!

Perhaps I could work it into a feature of some sort. If I did, it would probably be changed to "Featured on ForumDirectory" if I went that route, and the listing's link to that forum would have the rel="nofollow" attribute removed. The current featured forums link to FD, but there is no system to monitor linkbacks and add that attribute back automatically if the link disappears (which would also alert me of a possible downed forum that needs to be deleted from the Directory). If a link exchange is something that you'd like before I can get to that, feel free to drop me a message on here or use the contact form:

Contact Forum Directory

A dedicated space to provide feedback, ask for help, or get in touch with our team. We're here to assist you.

www.forumdirectory.com

 

[JoyFreak]

I tried to search for "forumdirectory" or "forumdirectory.com" on Google and I don't think your site is actually being indexed. I would look into that.

 

[frm]

I tried to search for "forumdirectory" or "forumdirectory.com" on Google and I don't think your site is actually being indexed. I would look into that.

Try this standalone search:
site:forumdirectory.com

It's indexed, but rank hit the tank with the last Google update. Notably, Bing picked up the slack.

 

[GrnEyedDvl]

This is an interesting idea. It reminds me a bit of the old BigBoards.com site.

How are you collecting member and post data? Some form of scrape? And does CloudFlare bot blocking impact that? Or are you adding them manually?

If you implemented some sort of rank system. By posts, members, something else? and hooked it back to the forums who installed a small plugin that showed your rank in the Statistics widget I would do that. So under all the other stats it would say:

ForumDirectory.com rank #12345 And then link back to your site.

You could probably setup something without too much difficulty that sends the stats back to you through that plugin monthly or bimonthly, which could then show the site as Confirmed. This would give site owners some incentive to join and setup that plugin as you could separate Confirmed forums from Unconfirmed.

I think the layout you have is pretty good. The only real critique I have is that there is nothing else there to discuss at all. I have no interest in talking about another forum on a third party forum. What I mean is (just randomly picking one) I would not talk about the Australian Broadband forum on your forum. If I wanted to talk about it I would go join their forum. So there is no real reason for me as a forum owner to visit your site much.

But what you could do is setup something like XenForo has here. Something for new forum owners to ask questions of established forum owners that is not platform dependent. On this site you are not going to get advice for anything except XenForo. On yours you could get it for just about anything if you have enough members.

 

[frm]

How are you collecting member and post data? Some form of scrape? And does CloudFlare bot blocking impact that? Or are you adding them manually?

It's an auto-manual multi-step process to get new/update forums using 3 different 3rd party services (4 if Archive.org is included in the manual process, which might be able to be automated too, but I haven't looked into their API). It could be closer to fully automatic with just manual eyes on verification to approve of forums/changes with some work; though, combining all the processes into 1 step is out of my expertise at this time and would likely require a complete re-write if I outsourced it as it's fragmented in different apps (calling XF.php)/add ons.

What I mean is (just randomly picking one) I would not talk about the Australian Broadband forum on your forum. If I wanted to talk about it I would go join their forum. So there is no real reason for me as a forum owner to visit your site much.

Valid point. I've considered turning off the forum completely, as everything is handled by the directory add on quite well. However, it still uses the forum for the manual "add your forum" process.

Additionally, some of the first add ons I've built automatically post to the forum (as a "Discussion" on the listing) when the platform is updated, stats are updated, and on the day the of the forum's anniversary, which not only bumps the thread/listing in What's new, but also sends it to IndexNow again.

Then again, can I showcase a forum, that is then merely a site running the XenForo framework, on the official XenForo forums without a forum (which is helpful for manual submissions of new forums if search engine scraping fails to find it)?

Something for new forum owners to ask questions of established forum owners that is not platform dependent.

There are well-established admin forums for this and, for smaller communities, such a saturated space that I'm not going to even consider entering the niche with a new forum.

You could probably setup something without too much difficulty that sends the stats back to you through that plugin monthly or bimonthly

This would be great, but also a headache to maintain for every platform as it would need to constantly be maintained and audited. So, the optimal process is to continue scraping.

I think the layout you have is pretty good.

That's all thanks to @Russ' IPBee style, which I had him update for XF 2.3 to have dark mode. Unsure if he's going to update it here, but he's more than welcome to.

Thanks for the critique! A lot of what you mentioned is in the plan for the directory/forum to be updated in August/September (provided a developer is free to devote their time to it).