Category Archives: Review Team

Forum Promotion Meticulous Reviews

Today, after much discussion, the Editorial Team has decided to offer a new type of review in the Forum Promotion Community Reviews section. This type of review is called a Meticulous Review, and it represents the very highest quality review which we can offer.

Here are the details!

The Meticulous Review – What you Get

Whenever you request a meticulous review, you will receive the following.

A close examination of your website by no less than two reviewers.
A thorough, nine-category review by each reviewer.
Careful critique of your forum both by reviewers, who will each create an account on your forum, and use it for a total of at least one week before completing the review.
The reviewers will make posts on your forum to get a feel for the community.
A written summary and final score by the Editorial Team Leader.

How Do I Request?

To request a meticulous review, simply post a topic in Community Reviews and select “Meticulous” as the review type. The price for a Meticulous Review is 2,500 FP$. Why so expensive? Because this type of review is incredibly detailed and thorough, and perhaps the best way to get feedback on your community.

The requirements are…

You may only request a Meticulous review for a forum.
If requesting for a forum, it must have 1,000 posts or more.
You must have 2,500 FP$ on hand.

If our current review team is not familiar enough with your genre to properly provide a meticulous review, we reserve the right to deny your request and instead offer an Advanced Review.

Spillit – Full Review Spotlight

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Spillit
Full Review by Lucky!

You can access Spillit to see for yourself what it looks like, by clicking here.

I would like to preface one thing, and it’s kind of good. I was looking through Spillit for 30 minutes before starting this review and I would like to state that this review may not be too long for the reason being that there really isn’t much to comment on and because I cannot find a lot of things that warrant a negative score. However, I will try my hardest to make this full review somewhat long, kinda.

Scoring:

First Impressions & Appearance – (18 out of 20)

Before I start, I would like to say that I had been on Spillit before and have always been fond of the overall look and appearance of the layout. Starting with the navigation, everything is laid out really well and I like the shade of blue that you have chosen for the background color. We have a couple of links that lead to different areas of Spillit, which I would expect. Going down, we have some sort of welcoming area that gives a quick synopsis of what Spillit is and gives the guest a quick way to create an account, which is really important in hooking guests. Keep scrolling and we see yet another area that lists some of what Spillit has to offer and links to those parts of the site that allows guests to get a chance to explore before signing up. I really like this approach because the same thing works in selling items, if they customer can touch it and hold it, they are the most likely to purchase. Nearing the bottom, we get a really easy and quick form to fill out should one want to register an account. Overall, when I first load up Spillit, I am very happy with how everything looks and it makes me want to stay and look around mainly because I know exactly what Spillit is about, because it’s right on the homepage. The colors work really well with each other and everything just flows together for an overall great first impression! I like what you did here!

Site Layout – (18 out of 20)

Now, I would like to say that this section is going to be fairly brief. The reason being, there really isn’t much to comment on. The navigation bar consists of four links, excluding the login and register, that users would use often if they were already logged in. This enables users to quickly jump between pages without having a lot of links to choose from. What you have left on Spillit are the different pages that users can view, such as the live feed and their own page where I am assuming their answers would feed. What I like about the lack of pages is the fluidity that comes with a simple site layout. You have pages for the basic things that make Spillit tick and then the standard links in the footer. Aside from that, that’s all there is in terms of pages. I really like this part of Spillit, it’s, and I have to say it like this, it’s stupid easy to navigate. Everything just makes sense, and I just have to commend you on that. You did a really, really nice job on making sure everything has a place and that it’s easy to get to.

Statistics and Activity – (18 out of 20)

Upon looking all over, I was unable to find any type of statistics section to inquire about users or their posts. However, one thing that I was able to look at was the live feed, which was just buzzing with new content being shown. As I am typing this section, I am looking to my other monitor, which has Spillit shown, the live feed just continues to update with new content, which shows that your users are active and are posting answers a lot. Since I don’t have much to go by regarding stats, I will have to stop here. However, from what I can see, very nice job activity wise.

Content – (18 out of 20)

Again, there really isn’t much to touch on here. All of your content is user generated which always has some drawbacks. However, I find this area of the review hard to properly fill out mainly because the genre allows for short little blurbs of content to other users, I mean that’s what it here for. I wouldn’t expect full on content on Spillit just because that’s not what it’s meant for. It’s more of a confessions box that you can share what you think about someone either anonymously or not. Because of this, I will leave this area rather brief because there isn’t much to talk about. The genre doesn’t allow, and it’s not a bad thing, a lot of content to be posted that could be rated on the quality and quantity of content and so on as much as you would on a blog or a forum.

Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (20 out of 20)

Apart from user generated content, which isn’t bad on Spillit, everything looks great. I looked over all of your pages linked in the footer and used software to look them over and we both cannot find anything to correct. I can tell you took the time to read over what you wrote on these pages before publishing them. I like when webmasters do this because it shows they took the time required to fully look everything over in detail before showing the public. Again, not much to touch on.

Total Score – (92 out of 100)

Final Remarks:
I really love what you have going on here with Spillit. Everything is very well done and it shows that you have taken emense time to make sure everything not only works like it should, but the attention to detail is amazing. Thank you for allowing me to look over Spillit and I hope you enjoyed!

Strengths:

– The overall theme
– How everything is laid out – it just makes sense

Weaknesses:

– To be 100% honest, I really cannot think of one.

Ivandis – Review Spotlight

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Full Review by Lucky!

You can access Ivandis to see for yourself what it looks like, by clicking here.

Scoring:

First Impressions & Appearance – (18 out of 20)
When I first look at Ivandis, the first thing I noticed was the logo and the overall look of the theme, both of which were well done and looks like it took time to get right, which I commend you on. When I do full reviews, I like to break the impressions and appearance sections apart to make things a little easier to read and follow. So, let’s start off with the header.

Header and Navigation
As I commented on already, the logo is very nicely done and looks professional. I like what you did with the “I” with the sword instead of the letter, very attentive to detail. Looking over to the navigation links, I see some links that are appropriate for the game, and not so much for the forum itself, which I really like. The hover over effects are a nice touch, again, very attentive to detail. However, the “Shoutbox” link leads to an error message, probably because you have it set so guests cannot see/use it, which I can understand. However, If it was meant to be like that, you should remove the link from guests.

Guest Message
Reading the guests message, it looks very generic. If I didn’t read the description of your OP, I wouldn’t have known what Ivandis was. Now, that could have something to with my lack of knowledge of Runescape, however, I won’t be the only guest on Ivandis that may not know what the forum is about. If you give a little bit of information on what you are and what the features are of registering, guests that don’t already about it won’t want to register and learn. You are never sure, your website may make someone want to learn more and play the game, but they don’t know much, kind of like me.

Overall Content
After looking at the header and the guest message, the rest of the theme is just as nice. Normally, I am not a huge fan of dark themes, however, I really like what you have going on here. The colors are really nice together and are soft on the eyes. A lot of the time, people with dark themes have really bright text colors that make looking at the theme hurt, however, not on Ivandis. I really like the background that you have chosen as well because it just sets the tone for the main theme and just ties everything together. Overall, I am very impressed so far, let ‘s go on!

Site Layout – (18 out of 20)
Beginning, navigating Ivandis is very smooth, which is a big deal to capture a guest’s attention. Navigation links lead to where they are supposed to and do so in a quick manner. Looking at the actual forums, I like the layout. The layout of the boards is logical and what I really like is the amount of forums are just right in compassion of the amount of posts you have. The one thing that I did notice was “Player Support” really doesn’t have enough posts inside of it to warrant its own category, maybe move it inside the “Ivandis” category would make more sense? Doing so would leave four categories, which are perfect. The sidebar looks nice too, with the hooks that I would expect from an IPB powered board. However, near the bottom, there is some wasted space that could be utilized to display some more content. You could possibly make a “Top Player” hook or a “Random Topic” hook to expand the sidebar and offer more content to fill that gap. Other than that, I really can’t say much more because the content on Ivandis is amazing and I just can’t stop thinking about how meticulous the theme and layout are.

While looking at some of your forum descriptions, I feel they are lacking length and a good enough explanation of each forum.A good rule of thumb is descriptions should be at 2-3 sentences long and give a good enough idea of what the forum is about without the user having to click the forum to find out. What you have now isn’t bad, but could definitely be worked on to add more length and quality.

Statistics and Activity – (18 out of 20)
Looking over the averages of Ivandis, things are looking nice, noting you’ve only been open for 55 days. Let’s throw down some numbers shall we.

You have been open for 55 days and you have 9,953 posts. That equates out to 180 posts per day from your members. That’s a great number to start out with, really it is!
Currently, you have 228 registered users since you’ve been open, which results in 4 users registering per day since opening. Again, that is a nice number, especially due to the niche, which is narrow.
This is where things look really nice. You have 9,953 posts and 228 users, averaging that out comes to 44 posts per registered user. Again, a really nice number to have this early in opening. Keep that up!
Adding today’s posts up, it comes out to 84 posts, 20% of which were posted by LordMinix.
Adding up the staffs post totals, it comes out to 1,135, which is 11% of the overall 9,953 posts. Now, this can be a double edged sword here. Seeing a number like 11% is nice because it shows the other 89% of the community are the ones supporting the discussions, not just the staff. However, you also want to make sure that your staff are doing their part as well to post. To achieve this, normally a number around 20% is a good line to draw when it comes to overall staff participation. However, where you are now numbers wise is a really nice start and if you can keep this numbers up, you are on a track of success.

Another thing that I like is the posts are spread out amongst the forums, not just in one particular forum. Overall, I am very happy with this section! Nicely done!

Content – (14 out of 20)
I can’t go too much into detail in this section primarily because Ivandis isn’t supposed to be a forum, more a game. Therefore, I wouldn’t expect the forums to be littered with general discussion topics and such. However, the posts that I have looked through looked good and of good quality. Like I said, I can’t go too far in ratings here just because of the usage of your forum, but overall, good job.

Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (16 out of 20)
Overall, this section does really well on Ivandis. There really isn’t much to look over mainly because you have a lot of user generated content, which is subjective in itself when it comes to quality. However, regarding your “Vote” page, I did find a few things. Suggestions to the page will be edited in blue.

// Why should you vote?
If you enjoy the server, and want the server to continue running with a fair amount of activity, you should vote daily so we get higher up the RuneScape private server lists. By getting higher up these lists, people are more likely to join, thus making our server more and more popular!

// What do I get out of it?
Well for a start, no one likes to play a server by themselves! So, by voting you’ll be helping us but also helping yourself because the more players there are, the more fun it is for you!

Secondly, you will get a reward! When you vote on all the websites you can choose from a list of rewards and can claim this reward in-game, read further for instructions on how to claim your reward.

// How do vote points work?
Vote points are a way of saving your votes in order to spend them later. You can gain a vote point

// How can I claim my reward?
Once you have voted on all the sites, you will be requested to enter your username and choose a reward. After choosing your reward, simply log into the server or if you’re already logged in then just reload and the reward will be added to your inventory.

// How often can I vote?
Unfortunately due to the restriction on most of the RSPS Top Lists, you can only vote and claim a reward once every 12 hours. This is not something that we can change.

// Important!
Make sure your vote has been submitted before you click next! If you skip a website and try to claim a reward, you may have to start again, usually you can just reload the page and the sites you’ve already voted for and vote for the ones you skipped.

Total Score – (84 out of 100)

Final Remarks:
Overall, I am very impressed with Ivandis and where it has come in little over a months time. Keep up your statistics and content and I think you will do just fine. It was a fun time looking over Ivandis and snooping around to find the things I did. I did very well and you deserve the 84 score!

Strengths:

– Statistics
– Dark theme is nicely done

Weaknesses:

– Condense some forums that don’t need their own category just yet
– Maybe watch the profanity within posts?

Open Carnage – Review Spotlight

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Open Carnage
Full Review by Jadster

You can access Open Carnage to see for yourself what it looks like, by clicking here.

Scoring:

First Impressions & Appearance – (13 out of 20)
Let me start of this review by giving out my personal thoughts on Open Carnage. When I visited OC, I was a bit confused as to what OC was all about. I looked at just the theme and banner but could not figure it out at all. The banner / logo really confused me as to what the site was about but after I read the blue box underneath the header, then I found out what OC was all about and realized it was a gaming related website. Personally, I found that a bit disappointing that I had to read a notice to find out what the site was about. If anything, I would say that your banner / logo should represent your website & have some sort of inclination as to what your site is about. This way, people won’t have to go and read to find out what the site is about. Looking at your theme, for a gaming website, I feel that a dark theme was a good choice as you don’t see very many light themed gaming sites that work well but I feel that a dark theme works best for gaming websites. The color of your logo seems very nice but with a space background behind it is what threw me off because I didn’t see how that connected with gaming in any way. Overall, I feel that the banner / logo should show more about what OC is about and you could add a bit more to the theme to help with that as well. So, let’s move onto the Site Layout of Open Carnage!

Site Layout – (15 out of 20)
Let’s look at the site layout of Open Carnage now. When looking at your categories & boards, I can say that they are pretty well organized. You have a good amount of categories and a good amount of boards in each of those categories to keep them filled up and keep things spread out so you don’t have too many boards in a category or too few. As for navigation around OC, there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with the navigation. It is very easy and simple to navigate and find things around OC. So overall, I do not see what is wrong with your site layout and your site organization is good. And again, navigation through the website is very simple and easy. So let’s move onto the next part of your review, the statistics & activity.

Statistics and Activity – (16 out of 20)
As it stands, Open Carnage has 50,926 posts but the amount of threads are unknown. You also have 305 members which if we were to average those numbers, you would have about 167 posts per user which is a great number! With that many members with an average of that many posts per user, that is outstanding! By far, this is the highest Post per User ratio I have ever seen by far. Looking at the activity though, it is hard to tell how active people are because you have the time limit as “In the past 30 minutes”, so it is hard to rate how your activity is when it is reset every 30 minutes. But looking at the stats every 30 minutes, with 14 guests & 2 members, that is great activity for Open Carnage. But again, without a larger window, it is hard to tell the activity of your website. Overall, I think that the stats & activity are by far one of the biggest positives of Open Carnage by far, so let’s move onto the content of your website!

Content – (16 out of 20)
Looking at the content of Open Carnage, I would have to say that your website holds a lot of good, quality content. With all the members that you have and all the posts, your content is skyrocketing through the roof along with the stats. But after reading some of the content that is posted around Open Carnage, I can tell that a good amount of time is put into the content to make it very detailed and provide quality information to the community of Open Carnage. I read several threads in the News Room and each and every thread that I read had quality information and each one had links back to the original source which is very professional. Showing where the information originally came from instead of ripping it off of them makes the site show professionalism. So overall, I would have to say that the only thing that brings down your site content would be small posts, such as 1 liners or single words. If you can minimalism that, you will get much higher and go much further with Open Carnage. So let’s move onto the last bit of this review, the professionalism and spelling / grammar of OC.

Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (16 out of 20)
Looking at Open Carnage and all the content that I read through, your site has some great content and the spelling / grammar was near perfect but wasn’t there just yet but that is to be expected, nothing is ever perfect. By far, the best grammar & spelling came from the staff members which isn’t a huge surprise. Most of your members are good with spelling & grammar in their posts but every now and then there are errors which isn’t a huge deal to be honest. And looking at how professional your site is, seeing how active your staff are and how proper their posts are, they are very professional with what they do. They make your website look very professional which in the end will help benefit your website in the long run. This will keep members around and bring new ones in as well. So overall, I would have to say your site is very professional and your site has great grammar & spelling by far. So that is all for this review, now let’s finish this up with my final remarks & your strengths & weaknesses.

Total Score – (76 out of 100)

Final Remarks:
Open Carnage was a great site to get the time to review. I enjoyed taking the time to review Open Carnage and getting to read some of the threads and articles you posted, especially in the News Center. So by far, this was a very interesting gaming website to review to say none the less. But anyways, thank you very much for requesting a review here at FP and I hope to be able to review OC again in the future!

Strengths:

– Stats & Activity
– Professionalism

Weaknesses:

– Site Logo / Banner

Twenty7c – Full Review

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Full Review by Lucky!

You can access Twenty7c to see for yourself what it looks like, by clicking here.

Scoring:

First Impressions & Appearance – (17 out of 20)

I have looked through your website before and I was intrigued by it, so I am happy to go deeper into it and look at the nitty-gritty. What I like to do in this section is to break things down into different areas of focus to make it easier to read.

Navigation bar
Your navigation bar is very simplistic, which fits well with the overall theme. It spotlights your logo really well and the logo fits nicely as well. Across the top, you have the links for the main categories for articles that are published on Twenty7c, which I love right off the bat. As a guest, I don’t want to have to look around for what I want, I want it to be right there for me to find, so nicely done. To the right of the links, you have a really simple search feature that offers a subtle drop-down holding the actual search function, I like it! However, one thing that I must comment about the search function is the flow of which it opens and closes. The animations that leads and follows it opening and closing is jumpy and often times took an awkward second to open, which isn’t the biggest issue, but I am nit-picking.

Main Content
Looking at all of the main content, I see a quick spotlight of some of the articles posted in the “Tech” and “Psychology” categories, followed by a larger preview of the “Curiosity” category. Something that I would do, if you have control of it, is to make that larger preview something that really sparks my “curiosity” and makes me click on the link to view the full article. When I was looking around before writing this review, I saw an article that was touched on maybe we know why people dream. Personally, I clicked on the link because I wanted to read more, because it’s a topic that I have consistently wondered. If that were intended to be placed on that larger preview on the homepage, I feel it would help with user engagement and time spent on your site because people would read the main article and click on another related article because they’re hooked. Something that I noticed scrolling down to the footer is you have two instances of “Connect” and “Tags”, which is inconstant. If you ask me, I think your homepage should show-off your articles first and foremost. Then have the “Connect” and “Tags” left in the footer like they are now. Not only do they look better down there, but it makes your articles the focal point on your homepage, which is important. I like the list of articles that I can scroll through and see a slight preview of the article before I read it, which makes user engagement that much better. After typing this section, I had to suggest something. On both of my monitors, the content seems to run into the background, and it is hard to see the box-shadow on the edge of the main content. When I opened up my Chrome Dev Tools, I found that changing “box-shadow” to “0 0 30px -10px #000” defined your edges better and helped to see where the edge stops and the background starts.

Footer
I really like your footer that you are using, it is simple and contains things that I feel are really important to include. Number one, you have your mission statement ready for the user to read what twenty7c is all about, which is nice to see from a guest’s view. I see a list of the latest posts which I can click-through and read. Subsequent to that, we see the tags feature, which I commented on above regarding removing the one on the homepage but leaving this one in tack. Something that I have to comment on is the placement of the: “Home”, “About Us”, and the “Contact Us” links. They look “odd” placed in that space where they are now and I would personally place them inside your description as anchor text.

Site Layout – (18 out of 20)
This is the one section that I was pleased to comment on after I looked through the different categories and articles. The articles are beautifully laid out in the homepage and the respective categories. This is very important because you never want to let your guest’s have to spend time looking for content, because it will only cause them to click off your site because of guests’s make judgement before actually looking in deeper. However, this is not the case on twenty7c, so nice job! Looking at the layout within reading an article is really nice too! You have a cover image for each article followed by the main category in which it is posted in and the title, which just makes it look that much better. Near the bottom of the article, you have the writer’s bio followed by the comment section. If you want my honest opinion, you rocked this entire section! I was really impressed.

Statistics and Activity – (11 out of 20)
This is where my positive view of twenty7c kind of took a turn for the bad. While I love your articles and most of them are really well written and are meticulous in length and content, I hate to say that some of them are old too. Something that I noticed was the absence of more current posts, in different categories. When a guest now comes to look at your website, the first thing they want to see is a thriving website, that makes them think there is always going to be new content for them to read and comment on. However, if everyday they come back hoping to read new articles and they see the same posts they have already read, hate to say it, but they will just look away and won’t come back. Now, I did see you have re-launched twenty7c on the 19th of July, which was a little over a month ago. Within a months time, I would have liked to have seen a little more content both article wise and comment wise. Something that I used when I use to write articles was offer a question at the end of the article, something that would offer users a reason to comment, and it paid off really well.

Content – (15 out of 20)
The articles that I did read were awesome! Not only did most of them offer quite the length to read, but most of them were a really nice read. I did learn some things just in my time reading what I did than I did beforehand, and that’s impressive! For the most part, the articles were really nice and if you keep up that expectation, the amount of articles on twenty7c would be higher and the quality of them would be the same. The niche of twenty7c is really interesting because you answer peoples inquires about life, which is interesting to a lot of people. For example, I really didn’t know that much about the stock market, but after reading the article explaining it, I felt like I actually learned enough to tell someone else what it was. Content like this is what makes a website professional and will make people thrive for your content because it answers what they don’t know. For someone like me that is really inquisitive, that is imperative to keep your readership.

Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (17 out of 20)
Looking into the user posted content, you did well with this section. I used a grammar tool to cross check certain posts and they did fairly well. Most of what my tools found were simple grammar issues and often times offered suggestions for different use of words based on the context of the article. However, I really didn’t find anything that raised an eyebrow or anything that comes out and slaps you in the face, spelling wise. I would defiantly keep up on checking user content before it’s posted though, you don’t want to let the quality of posts slip, because it will be difficult to fix after that.

Total Score – (78 out of 100)

Final Remarks:
Overall, I am very pleased with the look of twenty7c. I feel like the niche is one that would attract a lot of people that are thirsty for knowledge. Other than the few points that I touched on. I think you have a solid foundation to build on and I am excited to see where you take twenty7c and your writers as well. Keep posting interesting stories and I feel you will find a large readership. Best of luck!

Strengths:

– Overall layout of twenty7c
– The articles

Weaknesses:

– Lack of frequent posting
– Lack of content on the “About Us” and “Contact Us” pages.

3DS Pedia (Full Review) – Review Spotlight

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3DS Pedia
Full Review by Jadster

You can access 3DS Pedia to see for yourself what it looks like, by clicking here.

Scoring:

First Impressions & Appearance – (14 out of 20)
Upon first visiting 3DS Pedia a few months ago, I was very into the site due to the fact that I was a huge nerd and loved the nintendo 3DS. Now, revisiting the website, I am a bit disappointed with the change of the logo and a few other things that have changed but anyways, looking at the appearance of your website, I would have to say the theme is quite basic. The theme is just a few slight changes that can be made quite easily by anybody with coding & design knowledge. Personally, I feel that to make your site successful and to really stick out among the rest of the gaming related forums, you need to look into getting a custom theme for 3DS Pedia. Something that sticks out and is unique to your site alone. Something that when your visitors see it, they won’t be able to stop coming back. I feel that your site design is just very basic and the theme as well as the logo seem to be more related around Mario when the 3DS was nintendo, not just mario. Why not get your logo to be a 3DS with a stylis going sideways that has the site name engraved into it? Something that is a bit more out there and shows a bit more of what your site is about. 3DS Pedia is a nice site and looks very good and has potential, but if you wish to continue growing, then I would look into remaking your design. Overall, the design is still good enough to work for now but I still recommend looking into fixing it up.

Site Layout – (17 out of 20)
Looking at the layout of your site, one of the biggest things I like is how you organized your boards and changed the icons next to them. I also like how you organized them with specific games and such. This really keeps things organized and really makes it easy to find threads that I would want to read about a specific game title. I also like how you named each board with a unique name. Some of them I have seen but many of them are new and very creatively named and that was one of the main things that stood out to me. Another thing I like is your Member of the Week & Game reviews that you have set up on the side of your board. As well as the Today’s Birthdays widget. Many of your widgets you have added to the site are very creative and seem to fit very well with your website. So I do not see much else that is needing to be discussed about the layout of your site. It has good organization and a very creative design with the widgets and placement. So overall, keep up the great work with your layout!

Statistics and Activity – (14 out of 20)
Looking at the statistics of 3DS Pedia, you have 5,243 threads, 82,553 posts and 1,347 members. Your site has also been online for a full year now. So with that in mind, I feel that the stats are actually lacking to be honest. If you dedicated enough time to the site, I feel that you would have many more members then what you have. The 3DS is a very popular item and is widely known and a very hot topic when brought up because there is so much about them that is changing and always being added. So with a site being based around such a hot item today, I feel that your stats should be much higher then what they are really. If you are looking to get a boost on your stats, why not hold a referral contest and the winner gets some sort of prize that they could use either at 3DS Pedia or the Nintendo 3shop. Something that they would be interested in and would want to get their hands on without spending a penny from their own pockets. You could also host tournaments such as a Pokemon or Mario Kart tournament. Of which the winner earns some sort of prize. These are just a few ideas that you could do to get your current members and even viewers interested in and give them a reason to be apart of the community more. So overall, your stats are decent but I feel there is a lot you could do to improve after having the site up and running for a full year already.

Content – (16 out of 20)
As mentioned above, you have a lot of content, but the fact of the mater is that you need to make sure that the content you are posting and the content that your community is posting is not just quantity, it needs to be quality. People don’t want to read short sentences about a game or about a product, they want to know facts, opinions, reviews, things that they can really get into. I am not saying your content you have now is not quality, I am saying this as a reminder because many people believe it is quantity over quality when in reality, it is the opposite. With there being so many 3DS consoles and games for each, there is no reason why you couldn’t get great quality posts about them. The better the quality you post on the community, the more your members will enjoy it. They want to know details, not small little teasers or thoughts. Overall, I read a bit of the content and a lot of it seems good, well spelled and very intriguing but be sure to continue making each thread & post quality.

Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (18 out of 20)
As I had mentioned above, after reading some of the posts & content, many of the posts were properly spelled & had great grammar except for a few errors here and there but that was it.. So that wasn’t an issue at all. Looking at the professionalism of 3DS Pedia, the design is decent, the layout is great, the stats are still needing to be worked on but the content & spelling / grammar are fantastic. So looking at that, each of those can both benefit but also hurt the professional look of your site. But you have a very good site growing so far and just how your members act as far as I could see, they were very professional so I do not see an issue with your site professionalism. So overall, your site has great spelling & grammar, just a few errors here and there but other then that it was fine. And with all the other aspects, your site is very professional, the staff are nice and the members seem alright. So let’s wrap up this review with my final remarks.

Total Score – (79 out of 100)

Final Remarks:
As a 3DS fan, I found it a great experience to get to review 3DS Pedia because the site was something I was interested in and I also enjoyed getting to read some of the content posted around. But looking back on the review, I still would recommend taking a look at your site design and banner, but needless to say, the site was a great site to get to review and I do hope you enjoyed reading the review. I hope to be able to review your site again in the future!

Strengths:

– Site Icons
– Creativity

Weaknesses:

– Banner Design

Fel’s Photos Full Review #3 – Review Spotlight

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Fel’s Photos
Full Review by Jadster

You can access Fel’s Photos to see for yourself what it looks like, by clicking here.

Scoring:

First Impressions & Appearance – (17 out of 20)
Alright, let me start this review off by saying wow! When I first visited your website, I was astonished by the creative design and the unique navigation & header layout. One of the things that bugged me was the background used with the banner. The top corners of the banner image have a color to it so it isn’t full transparent. There isn’t anything wrong with adding the color, it just seems strange to have the corners with color but only on the top and not being consistent with the bottom corners. Other then that, the banner & header looks fantastic. I also like how you set up your social buttons right underneath your site banner. One of my other favorite things about your website is how well organized you have the images & just the home page itself. It is very professionally designed & the layout is very well organized. Overall, I think your site has great first impressions and the appearance of your site is very well done and it is by far one of your sites strengths. So lets move onto the next part of the review, your site layout.

Site Layout – (16 out of 20)
Looking into the layout of your website, I would have to say that the layout is another one of your sites biggest strengths. Just the organization of each and every page of the website is so neatly organized and just set up so nicely. You have featured articles on the main page of the site, your navigation bar also helps new visitors out by directing them to a page you called “Start Here” to help them know more about your website and what it is for. This is something that not a whole lot of sites are found doing these days as they just assume everybody knows what their site is about. So I see this as something that really makes your site unique and makes it more likely to have some returning visitors. Another interesting thing you have done is at the footer, you have set up what you are a member of, more images from your instagram and then the subscribtion set so people can subscribe to your blog / portfolio if they find it interesting enough to get email updates. So overall, I would say your layout is one of your sites biggest strengths, tied up with the professional design. So lets move onto the next part of this review, your statistics and activity.

Statistics and Activity – (17 out of 20)
Due to this being a blog / portfolio based website, it doesn’t have a statistics or activity counter, so this part of the review was a bit trickier for me to do. So I decided to base your activity off of how many articles you have spread out around your website. I looked around your gallery and into each category and took a look around, each of your categories has a minimum of 2 pages filled with content, some even have up to 8 or 9 pages. That is outstanding! The only category that doesn’t have 2 pages of content is the Writing Archives, it only stands to have 2 pieces in it but your other categories definitely make up for the lack of articles / posts in this one small category. So seeing all these posts, it is fair to say that your activity on this website is very high and I would almost have to say you are on every day if not every other day. Whether it is for just checking in on it or pushing out more content. It is just great to see such passion and time being devoted to your website. So overall, this was the hardest part of the review to complete seeing as how there is no statistics page or counter but I did my best and used what was given to me. So lets move onto the next part of the review, your site content.

Content – (17 out of 20)
After reading some of your posts that you have made on each category, it seems to me that you take a lot of time in making good little bits for each of your pictures and making quality stories or quality talks about each one. You also seem to post quite a lot for doing this on your own which is quiet astounding to see one person go through this just for fun. Your content that you put out is very well written and has a lot of passion and meaning to each one. Even when others can’t see the meaning in some of them, you know what they mean to you and some may be able to connect with you. Fel’s Photos is the first photo based website I have ever seen, so all the content you push out and how neatly it is designed really sparks an interest in me and really shows how much you care for the website. Each article or photo you post is unique which makes you site more unique. Overall, your site content is another amazing feature that reflects the professionalism and the dedication that you put forward into it. So lets move onto the last category of this review, the spelling / grammar and professionalism of Fel’s Photos.

Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (18 out of 20)
Looking at some of your content & images in your website, I read through each of them and found that your spelling and grammar is near perfection! It is obvious that you take a lot of time and put forward a lot of effort into making sure that your content for your visitors & subscribers is peaking perfection to make Fel’s Photos look professional and keep them coming back. Your site has such a professional feel & look to it in every page. There is no part of your site that doesn’t show professionalism due to the amount of dedication you have put into the site. Overall, I would have to say that your site is very professional and the spelling / grammar in your site is near flawless, nothing more needs to be said. So lets wrap up this review with my final remarks!

Total Score – (85 out of 100)

Final Remarks:
By far, Fel’s Photos was a wonderful layout and one of the best themes I have seen for a blog / portfolio website by far in all of my years as a website reviewer and webmaster. The site has great potential to become more and more popular even for it not having a chat board but still a great site worth the time and effort put in. I feel that the site will grow more and more as you continue to dedicate your time and efforts to the development of the website. I do hope you enjoyed your full review and I hope to review Fel’s Photos again some time!

Strengths:

– Website Theme
– Site Layout

Weaknesses:

– Banner / Logo Size

3DS Pedia Review – Review Spotlight

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3ds Pedia
Full Review by Subz

You can access 3DS Pedia to see for yourself what it looks like, by clicking here.

Scoring:

First Impressions & Appearance – ( 19 out of 20)

I like the template and the backgrounds, its very Nintendo orientated. I can see that your forum is very active and I like the chatbox at the top of the forum, which gets members chatting and being active while not posting on the forum.

You have a nice light theme, which works very well with your theme. The forum icons for each forum works well with your forum genre too.

I like the member of the week addition, which helps get people posting and wanting to earn triple coins, which they can use in the shop to buy things.

Site Layout – ( 19 out of 20)

The layout of your forums is really good, which allows a lot for discussions like current Nintendo discussions and past Nintendo Console and Gaming discussions.

I like how there is a wide scope for Nintendo related discussions too; given as your members have a lot of room for discussion. Also if your not a Nintendo fan you can just go into the media, anime, and graphic design and including other consoles boards for more different types of discussions, which is good as there are more gamers that use PS3 or Xbox as well as Nintendo.

Statistics and Activity – ( 19 out of 20)

I have been online a few times browsing your forum and your forum has been active, 30+ members online throughout the day. You have done very well for the amount of time your forum has been online for; almost 80k posts and 1300 members, I would be very pound of the forum if that was me. This is quite good for a year, there are not a lot of forums which gets this many members or posts within a year.

You have done great, I wouldn’t change what you have been doing.

Content – ( 20 out of 20)

I think its great that you have staff and active members making topics around the forum, as a new member I like that its not just the staff making topics throughout the forum. I would get me more involved in the forum and willing to make topics and get discussions started as I know other members would get involved and get more discussions started. I think that is quite important to see that members are also making threads and getting involved in currents discussions, as it makes the forum more active, so that when members log in they can see there are fresh topics to reply to, since their last login. All members love to see that.

Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – ( 19 out of 20)

The forum grammar is very good throughout the forum, by members and staff! I like how everyone is posting with proper grammar and punctuation.

Professionalism is great by everyone.

There is nothing I would change here, which will help new members when making posts and topics. Also it will help newer members in using better grammar and punctuation themselves in their posts and topics, instead of slang or shortened words.

Total Score –
( 96 out of 100)

Final Remarks:

Strengths:

– [one] Great Activity by members and staff
– [two] The grammer all over the forum, looks very professional
– [three] Member of the week is great as it gets members to stay active and be able to buy things from the eshop

Weaknesses:
– [one] The chatbox may take away from having more active posts around the forum
– [two] I would look into getting a better logo for the forum as the current one could be better.
– [three] I would add a general discussion forum as that would get members and staff talking about non Nintendo genres and could get more discussions going.

Fel’s Photos Full Review #2 – Review Spotlight

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Fel’s Photos
Full Review by Bazinga!

You can access Fel’s Photos to see for yourself what it looks like, by clicking here.

Scoring:

First Impressions & Appearance – (15 out of 20)
I like the header / banner you’re using for your site. It’s very nice but it doesn’t distract or take away the guest from what you are trying to get across or show them. The only problem I have with the header / banner is everything else on your blog stands out against it except for the title of your blog. When I click on the “Start Here!” or “Galleries” on your navigation bar, then the banner / header changes to a view of the beach. The view of the beach is really cool, but again, your title seems swallowed up by the view of the ocean (it blends in too much with the sky in the beach view). I would like to see the title of your blog stand out a little more. I do like the Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. icons underneath your title. That is a nice tough, the way the move when you drag your cursor over them. If not for those icons, I think the title could be easily missed. I would recommend making the title like the navigation bar underneath it. The navigation bar is easily readable because it stick outs at me from the banner / header instead of being swallowed up by it.

Site Layout – (17 out of 20)
Due to the layout of your blog, I find it easy to use (which is good for your guests). If your site is too complicated to use, that can be a put off to a lot of guests that are viewing your blog for the first time.

I’m having a problem with your ‘Photo Slideshow’ that is located at the bottom of your blog. I’m glad to see that it is on the main page of your blog but I’m don’t really like the fact that it is located at the bottom. I would prefer that it would be closer to the top or at least somewhere in the middle. I just feel like the slideshow is a really cool feature of your blog and I don’t feel like it’s getting the attention that it deserves being at the bottom, that’s all.

Statistics and Activity – (15 out of 20)
I’m glad to see that there are regular entries on your blog. Nothing can be worse for a blog than the creator not posting enough. You don’t have post an entry every single day if you aren’t available to do so, however, posting a few times a week at minimum is a great way to show your guests and potential followers how much you are passionate about photography (or whatever your interests are that you are displaying).

I am not seeing a whole lot of comments on your entries at the present moment. That can be easily be fixed if you ask a couple of friends if they wouldn’t mind commenting on your blog for you. Most friends usually don’t mind, however, you can always request a package if they are busy at the present moment.

Content – (17 out of 20)
I am glad to see that there is quite a bit of content on your blog. And it’s nice that you have a “Gallery” located in your navigation bar where a guest or potential follower choose to view your photograph’s from different categories. If you hadn’t already categorized your photographs, I would have suggested you do so here in my review but you beat me to it.

I am trying to figure out why you have a “Misc.” category and an “Uncategorized” sections in your gallery. I would suggest you get rid of the one section and just have the other. In my opinion, having both is unnecessary.

On the flip side, I enjoy seeing the “Food”, “Nature” and “Travel” sections of your gallery. I think you could expand the “Nature” section a bit more if your photography included animals as well. I know lots of people who are animal lovers that would enjoy that. But making some minor adjustments to your sections such as the one I just mentioned about your “Nature” section may attract more guests and even get some of them to follow your blog.

Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (16 out of 20)
There were only minimal spelling / grammar mistakes. I noticed that on one particular entry, you wrote “Did ya miss me?”. I don’t know if that was intentional or not….but some guests might find a sentence like that confusing, especially if English isn’t their native language. That’s why, when I am posting, I always make sure that I am use proper English. Some people who are learning English as a second language may have a hard time understanding a phrase such as this, even though a native speaker of English (such as myself) may be able to understand it just fine. If a guest has any trouble at all understanding you then that could be a huge put off to a guest or potential follower of your site.

Total Score – (80 out of 100)

Final Remarks:
Overall, I enjoyed your blog. I liked the fact that you seemed so passionate about photography. As long as you continue that passion for it, I think you’ll do well with it. Just some minor changes to it might make it a little bit more attractive to guests, which in turn could help gain some comments and activity to your blog.

Strengths:

– Site is easy to use.
– Dedicated/passionate owner.

Weaknesses:

– Title can be difficult to read.
– Entries need more comments added to them to increase activity.

USHost247 – Review Spotlight

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USHost247
Full Review by Ravenisawesome

You can access USHost247 to see for yourself what it looks like, by clicking here.

Scoring:

First Impressions & Appearance – (15 out of 20)
Upon viewing USHost247 for the very first time, I must say I was very impressed. I can tell that lots of hard work and dedication has been put into creating a very professional theme for the website, down to each pixel. After looking over each section of the site multiple times, I couldn’t find a pixel out of place. While the theme is beautiful, I feel a few more edits could be made to fit the site’s name. I have gone over a few ideas bellow on what could be changed to reflect the name of the site.

Since US is a word found within the site’s name itself, I think a few more shades of red, white, and blue could be added somewhere in the site. Perhaps the banner of the site could be changed to include the american flag somewhere? While I don’t think the entire template should be changed to represent the US, just adding a few icons with the color scheme could spice things up a bit. This would be pretty interesting to see.

One thing that bothered me a tiny bit is the home icon. It’s always highlighted as red, and thus it constantly looks like the viewer is on the main page. It’s a small issue, but it’s off putting to me a bit. Perhaps after clicking other links they could be highlighted in red like the home icon is? Still looking pass these small issues, the site looks stunning already. While scrolling down to the site’s footer, I noticed a link to the site’s blog. However after clicking the link, it redirected me to the main page so it appears that the blog is no longer active. This link should be changed to inform readers that the blog is either currently under construction or no longer active. Or if there is no blog planned for the site, this link should be removed until the blog is up and running.

I noticed that there are two log in links, which both lead to the client log in page. One of these could be removed, since this doesn’t look too professional. I would definitely keep the button located next to the “live chat” button, it’s easier to locate the client area log in page and it looks more professional compared to the link located on the opposite side of the site. Last thing I noticed while viewing your site, on the shared hosting plans page there is a error. Under the “large” plan text, you’ve mistakenly typed “15 email” instead of “15 domains”.

Site Layout – (17 out of 20)
I must say I am quite impressed with the overall layout of the website. The main site is extremely easy to navigate, I honestly have no complaints about it. Potential customers can easily find the live chat button just in case they have any issues or questions, this is one of the most important features on the site. Customers can easily locate the service plans that fit their needs, the buttons that redirect the user to the right service plans are located on every page and catch the viewers eyes. The only part of the layout that I honestly think could be changed is where the “one-script” install list is located. Since this makes it easy for customers who don’t know how to install different scripts, I suggest moving the list closer to the hosting packages list on the main page to inform them of the few scripts they can easily install with just a few clicks.

Content – (17 out of 20)
USHost247 offers wonderful hosting services that fits the needs of it’s customers. Therefore, I was absolutely blown away with what services USHost247 has to offer. Not only does your site offer wonderful hosting packages, potential customers can even try out the site’s hosting plans via a free trial period. Granted even if it is limited, this is a feature I haven’t seen much on hosting sites. Giving your potential customers a chance to try your services for free before deciding if this is the hosting site for them really helps bring more customers in. Best of all, the services don’t cost a thing to set up. However I feel that the knowledgebase section of your site needs a bit more content added to it. It’s pretty empty at the moment, there are many empty sections that could be filled to help customers.

Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism – (17 out of 20)
Overall I didn’t notice many spelling errors, but there are still some currently present on the site. Most are small typos, which can easily be overlooked while working on other aspects of the site. Nonetheless it’s always nice to proofread, or have another pair of eyes to proofread for you. I have gone over the small typo, grammar, and spelling issues in this next part.

The first grammar error detected on the website appears on each service page, the sentence I am referring to is the following. “We can help you choose the best one that fits for you!” Since this text appears on multiple pages it should be reworded to appear more professional. While the first half of the sentence appears to be fine, the final half of the sentence doesn’t quite roll off the tip of my tongue well. “We can help you choose the best service that fits your needs!” fits the statement better, of course you could reword the phrase however you like but this sounds much better.

I came across a very small typo on the Reseller Hosting page. This typo appears in the very first sentence bellow the “Reseller Hosting” text, specifically this following sentence:
“Make your own hosting business and be your own boss!.” There is a added period after the exclamation mark. Again this typo is small so it can easily be looked over, but nonetheless it’s a typo and should be fixed accordingly.

Finally one of the very few spelling errors I noticed was located on the Shared Hosting plan page, specifically located underneath the “Latest PHP & MySQL” tab. The word “prowling” has been mistakenly spelled as “proweling.” Again like most tiny errors I noticed this probably was looked over, but this should be fixed as well. These are the only few errors I did notice while viewing the site.

Total Score – (66 out of 80)

Final Remarks:
Overall USHost247 is a very professional hosting website. While the theme looks great a few more features can really make the site look even better than it already does. I feel that your site offers wonderful packages for many webmasters, regardless of their project. The prices for each service offered at USHost247 are great ones as well. It’s quite easy to navigate the site, even though there seems to be two links that connect the user to the same page. I hope that USHost247 will be around for more years to come, good luck with your project.

Strengths:

– The site is very easy to navigate.
– The site offers plenty of services based around it’s niche.

Weaknesses:

– While the theme is fine, a few more tweaks could be done to reflect the site’s name.
– The site has a few typos, grammar, and spelling errors.