Why share buttons are at the bottom of a thread?

[Steve10]

I like them as they currently are, I think it's the most intuitive place for them.

People naturally scroll down I think and having them at the top would literally mean being forced to scroll all the way to the top again and then if you wanted to read the replies after having to scroll down again.

 

[Carlos]

Exactly! they like the article! So after read the first post or thread they say "wow..I like this article, I´m going to share it"... but I dont understand the purpose to scroll down to the footer to share the page. See examples on any other blogs or forums, they have the share buttons at the top or under the title

Ah, I see! You bring up an interesting point.

hoo...you are so wrong...have you ever used a Facebook account? I think you dont understand the concept of share something..
Look at http://mashable.com/ how many people use the share buttons...only admins?...come on..

I meant generally. I mean, some gaming sites don't have members sharing any content... Not a MW3 website, not a MVC3 site, not a COD website, not a general gaming website... I don't see it. The only website that I see a lot of sharing is what you mentioned. I know Mashable. You didn't have to link it!

I have used a facebook account, in fact, I have several pages. I have shared my own content. But it doesn't seem like others are getting on the sharing action. It seems like I am the only one doing all the dirty work. Ahem; hard work.

 

[digitalpoint]

The share buttons are always a battle between being obnoxious and hidden away. For my site we made them easily accessible/visible up top. Not necessarily because we think they look awesome, rather we get a fairly large amount of inbound traffic because of them (thousands if unique visitors per day coming into the site because of "shares" people have done). Thousands of unique visitors/day is worth the placement being up top... But to each their own.

Every individual site should do A/B testing with placements to see what gives them the most bang for their placement.

 

[dutchbb]

I think that they are not visible because you have to scroll to the bottom of the page to see them.

Are any plans to move it or insert the share buttons for example under the title of the thread or at the top of the thread?

IMO they are very visible, I couldn't miss them when they got implemented. You're going to go to the end of a thread or quick reply eventually, and once you have you know they are there. And I agree it looks cleaner at the bottom of the page/thread + you need to read a thread before you share. So I don't see a problem the way it is, but obviously the template system allows you to place them where ever you want them.

 

[mrGTB]

Do the share button do much cop anyway?

 

[Claudio]

Every individual site should do A/B testing with placements to see what gives them the most bang for their placement.

Perfect answer

 

[M@rc]

Perfect answer

Yes, yes it is,

And if you want this done in the name of testing, try : http://xenforo.com/community/threads/moving-share-buttons-from-bottom-to-top-of-thread.22988/

 

[Digital Doctor]

Every individual site should do A/B testing with placements to see what gives them the most bang for their placement.

Does xenforo provide the functionality to easily perform such testing ?
Can you easily place the Share buttons at the start of the thread ?
Is this important enough that xenforo should provide options for Share button placement ?
Does Xenforo.com itself prove the the bottom of the thread placements results in less than expected use of the Sharing options ?

 

[digitalpoint]

Maybe it's just my personal preference for consistency, but I really don't like how the share buttons are in different places depending on the page you are on.

Main page = right sidebar
Threads = bottom
Pages = bottom
Members = left sidebar
Forum = missing completely

For sake of consistency, I've moved it to a more universal place similar to what we already have on our site already. I also force non-friendly URLs as the URL it uses since it's a little annoying how a thread could have 100 likes, then if someone changes the name of the thread... boom they are all gone.

Since the share buttons exist on all pages now, you can specify routes that should have unique share URLs (forums, threads, pages, members, etc.)... and also allows non-standard routes for custom stuff to have share buttons integrated automatically. And then if you don't specify the current route as a valid share URL, it will simply fallback to the main forum URL (for example things like the Help pages).

I still have some work to do since we also integrate the Twitter API for our social bar feed... but cosmetically it seems to be working.

 

[Brandon Sheley]

It's a simple template edit to move them to the top of the page.

Can you share the steps to change this?
Thanks

 

[dtmcl]

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/moving-share-buttons-from-bottom-to-top-of-thread.22988/

 

[Digital Doctor]

http://xenforo.com/community/threads/moving-share-buttons-from-bottom-to-top-of-thread.22988/

Nice work

I'd probably right justify the buttons, IMO.