Growth rate??

[ROBD]

Well... obviously there is no set answer that can be provided here, but I was wondering what some of you with successful forums growth rate looked like? Say, from day 1? How long to get to 1000 members? 1000 posts? 10,000? Just basic milestones like that would be cool to hear.

I'm about 2 weeks in and so far seems things are going pretty slow. Getting about 30-40 uniques a day and up to almost 30 members. Not sure how many of those are spammers though One cool thing I just realized was that my brand new domain that I bought from Name Cheap just a month ago, is actually aged and shows up in SEO Quake and other tools as being "born" in 2005. Thought that was pretty lucky and will hopefully help long term SEO performance.

Anyways, was just hoping to get an idea of how growth usually occurs on average for a forum. I know it's always different, but would love to hear experiences.

Loving xenforo btw. So clean and now that I'm getting the hang of it, very intuitive.

 

[craigiri]

I'd say that 10 to 20% a year is a fine start. Of course, growth depends on where you start out...

I think you first have to have a valid community and a critical mass and then, assuming that the community is well tended and moderated, it could grow quickly....

Some communities are given a kick by external events. As an example, if your community was about survival gear and Y2K was imminent, you might see fast growth.

So, I think the real answer here is that "it depends".

 

[ROBD]

I'd say that 10 to 20% a year is a fine start. Of course, growth depends on where you start out...

So, I think the real answer here is that "it depends".

Yeah.. maybe I should just rephrase the question entirely to:

Those of you with successful forums, how fast did you grow? How long til 1k posts and members? 10k of each?

Thx for the reply craigiri. Can I ask what exactly you meant by 10%-20%?

 

[ROBD]

Can anyone comment as to whether my domain showing up as being as old as Oct 2005 will help me an any real way? I've been told that aged domains can be an advantage for SEO, but have no experience with them.

 

[Andy.N]

Can anyone comment as to whether my domain showing up as being as old as Oct 2005 will help me an any real way? I've been told that aged domains can be an advantage for SEO, but have no experience with them.

No. Google said as much.
You should worry about creating valuable contents for your site, not how old your site is. A site that created in 2000 with zero content is a site with zero content.

 

[ROBD]

It wasn't a site with zero content, it was a forum.

Well, you are the first person to tell me that. Many others would disagree with you on the age thing it seems, as I've been googling a bit. I agree with you on the content thing, of course, but come on... you're saying you never think of SEO? I need to get visitors to my valuable content.

Thanks for the input .

 

[Andy.N]

Have you heard of Matt Cutts? You should, if you even discuss SEO.
That's the person you should listen to, not me or other people.

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[DBA]

Like Andy said, content is king. You can also have the most SEO "friendly" site there is, however without good content it won't go anywhere.

1. Good content
2. Everything else

I'd suggest creating threads/articles relating to whatever your niche is, that way Google actually has something to show in searches.


BTW I'm pretty sure we hit 1k posts in the first week.

 

[ROBD]

BTW I'm pretty sure we hit 1k posts in the first week.

Lol. Way to get me down bro!

 

[ROBD]

Of course I know who Matt Cutts is.

I agree that one should pay very close attention to Matt, I just don't think that that necessarily means you have to believe everything he says.

Thanks for the vid post, haven't seen that one.

 

[DBA]

Lol. Way to get me down bro!

Every site/niche is different though, you can't compare the two. What helped me was that I started out with a group of people and it went from there. I seriously couldn't see myself attempting to start a forum without a base (or serious ad budget).

 

[DBA]

I agree that one should pay very close attention to Matt, I just don't think that that necessarily means you have to believe everything he says.

Uh if you can't believe Google's own employee, who else can you?

 

[ROBD]

So... after watching the vid again, I'd say it does matter. You guys really think MC is going to come out and say "yeah, aged domains affect rankings" He never does that, he always defers to "focus on quality content".. Which I agree with, so no need to tell me that. I get it. The question was does age have any affect? Pretty sure it's part of the algorithm. In the vid Matt says "I wouldn't worry nearly as much about if your domain is 1 or 3 years old, as much as I would worry about quality content" He always talks like that.

Besides, I'm talking about the difference between what I thought was a 1 month old domain, but turns out to be a 7 year old domain.

 

[ROBD]

I seriously couldn't see myself attempting to start a forum without a base (or serious ad budget).

Or a good SEO strategy?

Worrying about having an ad budget or a base is akin to worrying about SEO.

 

[DBA]

Pretty sure it's part of the algorithm.

You do realize that that video is from 2009 right? How many times has the algorithm changed since then?

Also why are you so hung up on this domain age thing? What are you expecting it to do for you?

 

[ROBD]

Uh if you can't believe Google's own employee, who else can you?

My point is he is very indirect when he speaks. He isn't just going to come right out and tell you everything on certain topics.

 

[ROBD]

You do realize that that video is from 2009 right? How many times has the algorithm changed since then?

Also why are you so hung up on this domain age thing? What are you expecting it to do for you?

Not hung up on it man. Just asking for opinions. Thought it was a month old, turned out to be 7 years old, so I asked about it.

I'm expecting/hoping/wondering if it would give an SEO edge. Just as you had an AD strategy.... I need traffic too man. That's all.

Not sayin it will magically make my forum a success. Just thought it be cool if it gave me an edge in ranking for certain KWS. No big deal really, just asking... I know content is king.

 

[Jake Bunce]

you're saying you never think of SEO?

Basically yes. SEO is mostly snake oil. There are different parts to SEO:

1) The art of manipulating search engines to increase your page rank. This is called black hat SEO and search engines frown upon this.

2) Techniques for better defining your site for search engines. XenForo does this with semantic HTML, microdata, etc. This is neutral in terms of page rank. As Kier once said:

All that anybody can say is that it can't hurt.

3) Then there is the aesthetic component like friendly URLs which are not functional at all with respect to search engines, but many people think it's functional and many prefer the look of friendly URLs to non-friendly ones, so many web applications implement friendly URLs because there is public demand for it. XenForo includes friendly URLs.

 

[ROBD]

Actually never thought about buying ads for a forum. It would be super cheap hmm..

 

[DBA]

Not hung up on man. Just asking for opinions. Thought it was a month old, turned out to be 7 years old, so I asked about it.

I'm expecting/hoping/wondering if it would give an SEO edge. Just as you had an AD strategy.... I need traffic to man. That's all.

I understand that, however SEO won't help you any if you don't have actual content. Google doesn't just magically send you traffic because your site is SEO "friendly (or you have an old domain).

1. Put good content on your site
2. Google will find it (usually regardless of your SEO) and index it
3. User searches Google for something related to your site
4. Google links to your site
5. User reads content on your site.

So if you don't have content to start with, Google and SEO won't really matter.
Back to your question about domain age affecting rankings. Who knows, maybe it does or maybe it doesn't. Regardless IMO people (including me at times) spend to much time worrying about SEO and less about content.
If I were ever to start a new site (not happening), I'd start creating content long before I'd even open up the site. That way when the site actually goes live it'll have a good base to start with. Plus I'd release new content every few days/weeks to keep it fresh.