Has anyone ever offered to buy your forum?

[PumpinIron]

Oddly enough they still make money on them even though they run them into the ground.

This is true. But, I think they are going about it in the wrong way, shoving all those VigLink links down your throat with usually very irrelevant results.

I'm 99% confident if I took over one of those Internet Brand forums I could manage to make more money off of it, while also not resorting to VigLink and some of those annoying methods they use.

I think they are in the mindset of "set it and forget it" with the ads / affiliate links. It works, I just don't agree with it particularly.

 

[Jeremy P]

I also can tell you that they seem to be very stuck on using vBulletin, which in my experience is a horrible, horrible forum software these days.

They own vBulletin. The core XenForo developers actually used to develop vBulletin, but left soon after IB acquired it.

 

[PumpinIron]

They own vBulletin. The core XenForo developers actually used to develop vBulletin, but left soon after IB acquired it.

Go figure! Yes, back in the day vbulletin used to be good. After version 4 though I remember hating it.

 

[Ivancas]

My background is in web design / SEO, so I've been very effective with the site.

I think you are referring about SEO off page because XF out of the box is pretty great at it

 

[Sperber]

It doesn't appear that big, but it generates 100k a year in revenue from Amazon affiliate links, paid "supporting" memberships, Google ads, and eBay affiliate links. My background is in web design / SEO, so I've been very effective with the site.

Wow, I never expected this seemingly small forum to generate such a large turnover. Especially not by Amazon Ads, which seem to be your main source of income. Are you telling us your secret how you did it?

 

[PumpinIron]

Wow, I never expected this seemingly small forum to generate such a large turnover. Especially not by Amazon Ads, which seem to be your main source of income. Are you telling us your secret how you did it?

I would say 70% of the revenue is from Amazon, 10% from Google, 10% from eBay, and 10% from supporting member upgrades.

I invest A LOT of time in my forum. It’s literally my full time job. I spend a lot of that time writing curated content that is informative, helpful, and happens to have lots of links to Amazon products in the purchase.

I would never rely on VigLink to automatically place Amazon ads (or any other ads) for me. I’ve found they never seem to work out well in terms of being super relevant.

It also probably helps that my forum is my passion. Jeeps and off-roading for me isn’t just a business, it’s one of my biggest hobbies.

 

[m1ne]

A few times, all declined.

 

[Sperber]

I would say 70%

I know, for that I should pull my non-existent hat - but now that i've swallowed my coffee, I'm something between angry and f*** jealous
Anyway, well done, mate!

 

[PumpinIron]

I know, for that I should pull my non-existent hat - but now that i've swallowed my coffee, I'm something between angry and f*** jealous
Anyway, well done, mate!

Thanks! I think that as with almost anything on the internet nowadays, "content is king". It's hard to beat good content, so I put a lot of time into it developing the content. One of these days I should get around to making a YouTube channel I suppose.

 

[Mr Lucky]

Could it be they worked out that members only make up about 10 to 20% of traffic and that the members don’t click on ads.

So the cost of tech support keeping members happy with features that work is not justified when they compare it with the income they would get anyway.

So maybe the tech team are very good at making sure ads are served but not so good at fixing a broken search function.

After all if you go to the site and you can’t find something you’re looking for might as well click on an ad!

 

[gerryvz]

Go figure! Yes, back in the day vbulletin used to be good. After version 4 though I remember hating it.

LoL! Anything after version 3.8 IMHO was pretty much bloated garbage. And I started my forum with 4.0 back in the 2011 time frame (migrating from phpBB).

 

[Mr Lucky]

I think you are referring about SEO off page because XF out of the box is pretty great at it

Sadly I find SEO to be it’s weakness

 

[Ivancas]

Sadly I find SEO to be it’s weakness

For example...? Have you created a thread about it on https://xenforo.com/community/forums/xenforo-suggestions.18/ ?

 

[PumpinIron]

LoL! Anything after version 3.8 IMHO was pretty much bloated garbage. And I started my forum with 4.0 back in the 2011 time frame (migrating from phpBB).

That's right! It was anything after 3.8 that was complete crap, I remember now. It's been well over a decade since I touched vBulletin, so that's probably why I can't remember.

I suspect after 3.8 was when vBulletin got bought out, huh?

Anyways, their forum software is atrocious. Anytime I visit a forum running on vBulletin these days I almost immediately click out of it.

 

[gerryvz]

Yes, I do believe that version 4 (or shortly after it came out) was when the original creators left for greener pastures ;-)

I'm always amazed to see the numbers of forums out there that still use 3.8! It hasn't been supported for eons.

I know that VerticalScope has been converting at least some of its forums from vB5 over to XF. One of the big mercedes-benz forums, benzworld.org, just converted over a couple of weeks ago. I ran vB 4.2 as long as I could, but it just got too painful with the lack of support and active development. Could probably have run it for another few years, but php versions were rapidly becoming outmoded and it would have just been a matter of time. Not to mention I was running up against the limitations of my managed hosting provider, 1&1. Mainly of inode count.

I believe that vb 4.2.5 was a "fix" to extend its life by adding support for php 5.6/7.0, but nothing as far as I know is supported beyond that. Otherwise 4.2.4 and 4.2.5 were the same.

None of this is a factor anymore, thankfully !!

 

[PumpinIron]

Yes, I do believe that version 4 (or shortly after it came out) was when the original creators left for greener pastures ;-)

I'm always amazed to see the numbers of forums out there that still use 3.8! It hasn't been supported for eons.

I know that VerticalScope has been converting at least some of its forums from vB5 over to XF. One of the big mercedes-benz forums, benzworld.org, just converted over a couple of weeks ago. I ran vB 4.2 as long as I could, but it just got too painful with the lack of support and active development. Could probably have run it for another few years, but php versions were rapidly becoming outmoded and it would have just been a matter of time. Not to mention I was running up against the limitations of my managed hosting provider, 1&1. Mainly of inode count.

I believe that vb 4.2.5 was a "fix" to extend its life by adding support for php 5.6/7.0, but nothing as far as I know is supported beyond that. Otherwise 4.2.4 and 4.2.5 were the same.

None of this is a factor anymore, thankfully !!

At least they are finally switching them over to XF. Like you said, it blows my mind there are websites out there still running on vB 3.8. I would think that has to be a huge security hazard in terms of not being up-to-date and running the latest versions of PHP, MySQL, etc.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I know that VerticalScope has been converting at least some of its forums from vB5 over to XF.

But sadly they use a really dumbed down style (you can see on that Mercedes forum)

No filters on the search, let alone advanced search

Ads appearing every 5th post that actually masquerade as posts, so people inadvertently click not realising it's an ad.

 

[PumpinIron]

But sadly they use a really dumbed down style (you can see on that Mercedes forum)

No filters on the search, let alone advanced search

Ads appearing every 5th post that actually masquerade as posts, so people inadvertently click not realising it's an ad.

So in other words... done in typical Vertical Scope / Internet Brands style

 

[Alpha1]

I suspect after 3.8 was when vBulletin got bought out, huh?

No, it was bought before 3.8. IB uses their own version of vbulletin (3.9) with lots of features that are unavailable to their customers competitors.
When vbulletin 4 was in shambles and many vb webmasters were desperate, they were buying up forums left and right. They offered to buy my big board for peanuts as well. Lets just say that I have declined offers that were 35 times higher than their offer. It was a real low ball offer.

 

[PumpinIron]

No, it was bought before 3.8. IB uses their own version of vbulletin (3.9) with lots of features that are unavailable to their customers competitors.
When vbulletin 4 was in shambles and many vb webmasters were desperate, they were buying up forums left and right. They offered to buy my big board for peanuts as well. Lets just say that I have declined offers that were 35 times higher than their offer. It was a real low ball offer.

I guess they are low balling everyone. Kills me to think that some of these guys sold their larger forums for 50k or less