98% of Forums Fail

OK, so not a all conclusive test but just something I found interesting...

I have a directory for forums. I intentionally keep most of the submissions in the que for at least 3 months before I review/approve them. I do that because a lot of submissions are for forums that have less than hundred posts, still have default logos, etc. In other words they are brand new.

There are hundreds of forums waiting in the que and yesterday I reviewed 100 submissions that were made in May or June of this year. Here's how they broke down:

59 - The last new post, besides bots, was on or before June 1.

21 - Page cannot be displayed.

12 - Domain active but forum changed theme/topic/owner since submission and title/description is no longer valid.

6 - Not even forums...although based on the description included with the submission appears it was a forum at some point.

2 - Still active and match the description provided at the time of submission. They were approved and added to the directory.

 

Not at all hard to believe. The problem is people get the idea but do not realize how much work it takes to get one going strong. You have to have months and months that you can devote to it. People dont just show up and start talking, there has to be talking already taking place.

 

Its so easy to set up a forum these days. If i was 12 today id go and set up 20 of them. Obviously none would make it.

 

I have a 1.5 year old forum specific to a car model of only several years... and it already has 1100 members, 40,000+ posts and continues to grow. It averages around 200-300 posts per day and 2-4 members per day now.

 

Forums can succeed if you offer something to them they can't get elsewhere, or offer it better than the rest. Not to mention, starting out with an existing user base or getting a group of people posting is pretty much a must.

 

Exactly. A lot of people (myself included way back in the day) start with forums assuming it's easy to gain a userbase ("You only need a few people to get thing rolling!"). Realistically, it's very difficult.

 

When I started my forum 1.5 years ago there was already 6 other forums dedicated to the same model/year car as mine, one or two of them with over 5,000 members and 4+ years old.

I also started with 0 user base. The only thing I had to offer was a better layout for the forum and the promise that fighting wouldn't be tolerated. The first 4-5 months were very slow (less than 50 members). But those members became loyal and actually worked hard to help me gain more members by visiting car domain pages.. telling their local car clubs.. etc...

The rest is history.

 

yo-yo I love the little disclaimer in your sig.

 

Well I don't want anyone to think I claim to own/work on the site (since thats what most people put in their sigs)... it's just a site I really like and want to spread the love

 

My forum was pathetic for a while, like one new post a week, untill I started creating a new thread with each new article posted on the site, which is about 15 per month in the form of "issues" like a magazine. In the article I post a link to "discuss this thread in the forums" and in the forum thread I put "click here to read the article," incase anybody found that thread from a search engine instead of from the article. Before I knew it, not only were people discussing the articles but they started to make new threads. It's still a pretty slow forum, but we're building steam. Two months ago I was lucky to have 20 people log in in a day, but this month we've been above 50 since the newsletter I sent out on the first.

Oh and my newsletters which go out to all members is personalized with t heir user name, has a link to login to the forums, and provides a password recovery link incase they've forgotton. One step at a time, forum owners.

Don't expect to make PPC ad revenue from your forum though. :eyeroll:

 

How did you generate initial interest? Did you seed the fourm first?

I'm trying to set up a forum, but it looks kind of clumsy without any posters. What was your traffic range when you set your forum up? Or did you build the website strictly for your forum?

 

if you change cars won't you lose interest??

 

It helps if you got a content site with a lot of visitors. Start out witn one message board. Don't do what many dead sites do, make 25 message boards thinking they'll all get bombed with members and then posts. Once the one board is active, then start adding more boards. I made my first message board back in 1997 using ONE WWWBoard, then at one time had 64 of them (Nintendo 64 days). Then I upgraded to UBB, then in 1992 upgraded to da King of them all, vBulletin.

There is one kind of message board that every owner would just LOVE to be dead and never get posts... Support boards for products. It's much better to go days with out a post than having 100 new threads made each day that are questions on how to get the product set-up!!! Then the webmaster can spend time doing webmaster stuff insted of spending all day answering questions.

I'll bet vBulletin.com would just LOVE it if there boards suddenly died!!!!

Then again, the paid support guys might not like it!!!

 

I had a few friends locally who drove the same car as me and we all started talking on through the forum... I started the forum the same time i started the site .. which also has a little bit of information, pictures, etc.

 

I've already lost most interest.. but I don't do much to run the site, my mod's run it for me .. when they grow tired of it I have 1000 other members who would love to take their place.

 

Was that aimed at me?

 

Did you mean to search for : rolleyes :?

 

No!!!! On the user side, it's best when every one has no trouble, right!!!!!

BTW, check the thread!!!! It can't find the two random content files, hince the Internel Server Error message!!!