Forum Link Building made easy

It only takes a few moments to fill out the registration on a forum, and only a moment longer then it would take to fill out a directory.

A directory in many cases is a one shot deal and can often cost money on a monthly basis. Money I currently don’t have. It’s wonderful to get a linkback from directories, so it’s certainly worth it to be a part of as many as possible, but that often includes only the free ones. A directory can also offer some valuable Page Rank, rank that’s often worth paying for (but again, I have no cash).

Forum links on the other hand are free, well, in most cases. Deep linking is also an option, as well as multiple links! Though, rather then money, forums need a certain amount of time invested.

Here is my schedule for time…

• First, you’ll need a valid email address. I personally use a junk one from Yahoo…I hate it when a forum sells my email, and many it seems do.

• Secondly, you need to find forums in your niche. You can do this one of several ways, I generally search for “my niche” + “vbulletin” or “phpbb” or even “forum” this should pull up at least a handful of forums within your specialty that you can join.

• Third of course would be to join the forums. Immediately after joining the forums fill in your profile, even include a nice avatar (not one with an ad). You can even put in your yahoo IM info (like anyone cares, and it won’t matter if you are using the one from your junk email). This shows you are a real person and people will take you more seriously. Don’t forget to fill in your webpage and your signature!

You can stop here if you wish, our home page link and signitures MAY be counted as a linkbacks. More power to you if that is the case, though in most cases now-a-days admin are cleaning house every few months to clean out the spammers. If you think this may be the case, move on…

• Find the forum for introductions, and introduce yourself…again, this proves you are a caring human interested in the community. Your thread will get bumped a few times as people say hello, with luck it’ll be on the main index when Google crawls by…

• Click the MEMBERS link and find a post whore (people like them it seems, they generally have lots of rep. Also, most post whores are admin or mods…and it’s always nice to befriend them.). Once a post whore is found that you like the name of, click into their profile, then click on either their posts or the threads they’ve started . This will give a list of generally current topics, which can be easier then scrolling forum by forum.

• Find a topic that interests you, post something RELEVANT in it.
  

• Repeat the last two steps once a month. This will give you a new relevant link back monthly, as well as the one in your profile. It’ll also keep your account active in the eyes of admin. And the time it takes is often less then the price of many directories.

Additional Options:

• After a few months, find sticky threads that list “useful resources” and post a link to yours.
• Actually become active on the forum for a few weeks/months…this will certainly bring more attention to your signature and/or any relevant links you can get out.
• If you are recruiting for a forum yourself, then gain a few friends, pull them in…many forums offer ‘gold accounts’ and if you can grab a few of those, many will pay for each forum they are a member of.
• “Sitcky threads” will gain in PR faster then others. If you can, try to sneak a link in (even if it’s your sig) on page one for the best effect, failing that, look for the default post cut off and try to land your post on the top of a new page.

Find more forums, and then repeat the entire process. Once you’ve registered and the time it takes to get that out of the way, finding a new thread to post in will only take 5 or 6 minutes. An hour a month will result in 10 link backs…you can likely speed the process along if you just post worthless drivel like “good post!” or “well said”

Regardless though, BE HUMAN and I can not stress that enough, and don’t SPAM. In many cases I search for new user’s names on my forum. If I see nothing but spam from them I’ll ban them before they can bother editing their profile.

Have fun on the forums!
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Format changes

OMG… forum changes

I’ve been planning several changes for several weeks, today, for the better part, I got caught up. I removed the new category of Occult Aspects and moved all that was there up to Magickal Persuasions. I guess from the beginning the creation of that forum was simply a bad idea. *sigh*

I do think that it looks much cleaner how though, and hope that the format change will help the flow of the community.

I have also lessened my responsibilities, and have give Mmothra a more specific task. I have done this by promoting Forest Breath (who has thus far, preformed better then any other mod, and I’m not saying that because I’m sleeping with her!) and Cypher Grey (who used to be Chalis) to the position of Super Moderator. Both of these individuals have proven to me that they not only are active participants within the forum, but have gone above and beyond in many of their moderating duties. My hat is off to both of them, and I know that they will both serve the community well.

Now the site is broken into four main groups, Information, Paths, Persuasions, and Social. I am in charge of the site information, Mmothra is now the super over Paths, Forest breath over social aspects, and Cypher Grey over persuasions. This distributes the work load of moderating between three competent individuals. Again, I am happy with this set up.

I am also in the works of setting up a classified section on the site. The forum is ready (it’ll be the old occult aspects board) it just needs specific guidelines that will supersede the existing rules, as there are certain legal issues I must attend to in order to allow members such a bartering system. I look forward to seeing how well this section will perform.

Once that is in, I’ll once again be working on the article section which has all but flopped…but then, I have yet to actually push it as a part of the site.

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Corpus Directory

I am now looking into the various options for Directories. I am thinking that I'd enjoy expanding into that type of thing especially for the Occult niche. I have no actual plans thus far, only a million ideas floating around in my head.

Expect more news on this, and likely a new domain or three by years end.

Post whoring at the point

I’m a member at Digital Point forums and have noticed that they have rules that seem a bit loopy and onesided. They have no post whoring rules in effect and there are posts after posts with no content, and I mean NO CONTENT. Such as PM SENT! Like the nav bar does not show that. Post counts at this place are important, as if you have a high enough count you can see your signature links, avatar, and even your location. I’m seriously beginning to think I may start whoring my posts so I can make $2.99 a month *boggle* Actually, I’d like to see their staff increased 20 fold to help put a stop to such a thing.

While on some level I can see why such things are done, but on the whole, it shows just how shallow most webmasters are which is sad, as we are clicking on their ads.
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To blog or not to blog

There are a few up coming addons from vBulletin which I plan on taking a serious look at. One is a social-networking and blog add-on which will most likely cost a bit but I think will be nice enough to warrant such a price. The other is a project tracker (for bugs and what have you). I’m unsure if this second one will be worth it for me, as the OC is an occult community that is currently not offering much more then a basic discussion forum.

I do think though, that expansion can be key (apart from content) to help the site grow. I know I for one may enjoy moving this blog over there, as it would certainly be more applicable to the Corpus then blogger.com is.

Seeds of Change ~ needs change

Ahhh....my second rant in this blog that actually has nothing to do with the site *sigh* but then, it kind of does, as if I can't have a garden, I may need to make ends meet in other ways.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Forest Breath Words of advice if you are planning to order from them this year. I placed an order on the 6th. Their website says they ship orders within 2 days and you receive them in 4-7 days. It took them a total of 3 minutes to take the money from my bank account. I have yet to receive the order. I called on Tuesday and was told they had a seed packing problem that is now fixed and got behind on orders. My package would be shipped in a “day or so”. I checked the website yesterday to look at my order. One item was backordered and the rest were “in the warehouse”. I sent an email and got a response that stated they could not guarantee my order would be shipped out yesterday, but hoped it would be. They stated a seed packing problem caused the issues. I was frustrated but had decided to wait on them. I checked my order status today. Now two items are backordered and the rest are “in the warehouse”. I called to check on my order. A snotty little thing informed me that she could not promise my order would even be shipped this week. She said they bought a new seed packing machine to make things run easier and it was late getting delivered and it put them behind. Although their website says items will be shipped in 2 days…..they are now telling people who complain about not getting their orders that in reality…..it will not be shipped for 2 weeks. Which will give ample amount of time for half of my order to be on backorder I guess. So I asked to cancel my order. Although I was told yesterday I could do that, that option is no longer available today……20 hours later. I cannot cancel my order BUT….I can let them ship it to me when they choose to do so and then refuse the order. When they get it back they will credit my account 2-3 weeks AFTER they receive the package back. Meanwhile…. I sit here thinking…..yeah….I should have used Seed Saver’s Exchange. The way the weather has been….2 weeks will be too hot to plant the peas!

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I'd also like to mention that blogspot took 8 minutes to load (from me clicking my book mark to get in, to the edit page). IMHO this is 7 minutes too long...

YouTube Sucks (Vimeo ROCKS)

Why I hate YouTube:

I’ve been a member of Photobucket for years and while they keep bloating the place I do enjoy it, and they’ve not bloated it to the point where my little old dialup connection can’t handle it (though it’s now getting close). The uploads there still remain quick, and for video the processing times I’ve been pretty happy with. The trouble I have there is that I can’t limit who can see what on a case by case basis. That has caused me to find a host for video.

I started with YouTube because it’s the Video King…but I found out that not all kings are benevolent. And in finding this out I’m simply AMAZED that others even try staying there.

I uploaded the same video to Photobucket & YouTube and these were the results:

Upload time:
PB = 38 Minutes
YT = 1 Hour 13 Minutes

Processing times:
PB = 1 minute
YT = 36 Minutes

So, what took me less then 45 minutes on onsite, took nearly two hours on the other. Problems? Yeah, I think, I emailed YouTube and I got a FAQ YOU reply pointing out that their policy states it can take up to 24 hours to upload video (TWENTY FOUR HOURS?!?!?!?) Not even on dialup!

I sucked it up and tried to stick it out. Similar results time & time again, through various times of the day & days of the week, I was getting the same bloated results for upload and processing. Their default uploaded won’t even work (it actually takes longer), thankfully, they have a backup.

Yesterday I uploaded a ONE MEG video and it took me about 35 minutes to upload. I was pretty amazed at the time on this one, and thought to myself “YAY, maybe I’ll stay” as the processing only took a minute this time…well, at least it looked like a minute. The status of my video was LIVE but when I clicked on it I was given a “still processing” error. This error continued for over TWO hours. Two hours to process a one meg clip?

Yeah, I didn’t think so either…

I asked the fine folks at Digital Point for some alternatives and here is the current list:

http://www.cliplot.com
http://www.metacafe.com
http://www.break.com
pornotube.com (but I’m not sure I should link it)
http://www.vimeo.com/
http://www.dailymotion.com/
http://www.bored.com

My current WINNER is http://www.vimeo.com/ as I was happy with the upload and processing times….though I do plan on a few others.

Now, I have to do a bit more research, and possibly get a plugin made for the Corpus, as we’ve been thinking about video integration.
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