If you have been following me for some time now, then you should have noticed that i am a guy that likes to experiment and commit mistakes.
It is how we learn right? At least that’s what i hope. lol
Well, i have a forum with over 1000 members and a very decent traffic count each day.
I am using Simple Machines to power the forum and i was using the version 1.1.4 with a great looking template with ads very well placed, specially the adsense link units.
The forum database was getting too much garbage because i installed many modifications for the forum, i try and then delete some of them. But the deletion usually doesn’t erase the database data inserted when installing the mod, so along these years the garbage was accumulating. And lately, i was receiving to much database errors for my taste. Fortunately only i could see them, but that was pissing me off so i decided it was time to get ride of the crap…
What have i done?
well, i could easily have just upgraded to the newest stable version of SMF (1.1.5), but i had a little itch compelling me to install SMF 2.0 Beta 3.1 Public.
Ok, now you can say “What was this guy smoking? Pot!?!” lol
It’s a risk to install a beta release on a production site (production meaning fully launched and active site), but as i am very comfortable installing, updating and modifying SMF and i had backups to help me in case of despair, and considering this i installed the beta version after doing the proper tables deletions to clean the junk.
Did a full install of SMF because the majority of the modifications weren’t compatible, template included!!! That is why my revenue from adsense was screwed.
I have to stick with the default template, because no one is making templates compatible with version 2.0 due to the fact that the template structure will be completely rewritten for the final release.
With the old template, i was getting around 15-20 clicks a day making me a nice revenue in the end of the day, but now, with the default template with the ads in the exact same place, my clicks fell to 1!!!
The SEO structure was also changed, and this can potentially have some impact on revenue because google is still crawling the new addresses and i have seen a decrease in traffic coming from the big G.
This could be a concerning problem, but to say the truth, i don’t really care. Yes it is money that im not winning anymore, but i can use my forum to help develop an excellent piece of software by reporting any bugs found, and i was really looking forward to try the new options available in version 2.0, and it was well worth the risk i took. 
So, if you are performing very well with your smf forum don’t upgrade to version 2.0, unless you are still using the default template and you are comfortable as i am with SMF management.
You have got a forum with 1000 members. I am interested to know where is it, I mean its URL. I do not know much about monetizing forums.
Agent 001s last blog post..Help Me Choose a Wordpress Theme
the forum i was talking about is dahh.net
i will be covering a series of posts regarding forums soon
I think the effect just for a short term. To increase your SEO forum why don’t you held a contest about promoting your site? Maybe you can select a winner on top position about “I am proud to be a forumer of dahh.net” or something like that..hehe, just an idea because I’m joining some seo contest and felt it sure attract everyone.
Halim-Belajar SEOs last blog post..Thank you Guys!
hehe contest are always good but in the case of this community it does not apply. I get a lot of traffic from google, and this is(was) responsible for about 80-100 new signups each month.
Thanks for the warning.
@Halim: The change in seo structure means existing thread is no longer available in search engines. That is not acceptable for high traffic forum.
yep. That is why a made a 404 redirect. But that made me loose the targeted visitors because they are being redirected to the frontpage and not the subject that brought them in first place.
Just as a small curiosity, before i did the SEO optimization for the forum i was getting 4-5 new members each month, but after SEO optimization the values reached 80-100 new signups/month!!
Sad to hear that and anyway I am not familiar with forums too. Dahh.net looks decent to me but I can’t understand the language either. Thought of joining ur forum in the first place. Sorry!
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Dahh.net is a a forum directed to people that speak portuguese. but anyway thanks for the interest
Thanks for sharing this info. Currently I’m running SMF forum with 6000+ members
you have a forum? can i know what forum is?
that sux… at least you probably learned stuff that will save u money in the longer-run. and about that pic… i really hope that person didnt burn those bills all the way -_-
-Mike
So you were smoking pot right??
Good post Hugo…I am going to check out the forum right now!
Reggae Artistss last blog post..Reggae Artists From Trinidad & Tobago
i wasn’t but my neighbour was. maybe the smoke entered my room….. lol