Basic Review
Site Name:All Tech Talk
Site Type:Discussion Forum
Age:Officially just under 3 months,
Appearance
To be absolutely honest I cannot make up my mind whether I like the chosen style or not, it's very simple, but is the kind of style that could grow on people.
It does look on first impressions to be washed out, and lacking in colour, I suppose for a techy forum I was expecting something a bit more up beat and techy looking.
The forum Icons for example completely lack any inspiration at all, they are just large dots !. The forum icons are of a similar style, they lack that custom feel, which for a techy forum is important IMO.
The banner is very simple, the logo looks like a stock item, the text is very simple, with not even a hint of customisation.
The whole style makes the board like like it is a beta version and is pre launch.
Layout
The layout to me seems a little upside down, most forums would have the introduction categories at the top, followed by the niche subject, then the general discussion area, the main critique though is he amount of space the chatbox takes up, it's very intrusive right at the top of the forum all the time, and it takes up so much space.
I was also somewhat bemused that you only have google and twitter on the index page, and all other social media links only appear in viewtopic.
Statistics and Activity
Your stats don't seem to add up with whats on the index page, so you must have some hidden forums unavailable to guests, 281 members in just under 3 months looks very impressive, as does over 6000 posts, however a great number of your members have 10 or fewer posts, I counted 3 pages of members with no posts whatsoever, so all is not right somewhere as I will point out later.
During the time I was online, I was he only one online, so it seems the board could do with more activity, I appreciate that it takes time to get a forum running, your stats suggest you stormed out of the blocks, and have now hit a brick wall activity wise.
Content
To be honest on the technology front you do not have a lot of content, from what I can see only two are dedicated to "technology" as I understand it, this could be the reason behind the number of members you have with zero posts, there simply isn't enough for them to talk about.
The games forum should be full of the latest consoles etc, ( it may be, but I got fed up of waiting to connect to your server), I cannot understand how Websites and programming come under technology, Internet yes.
You only have two really busy forums, and several not so, some are even what I would term very quiet, these need work.
Maybe the time is right to appoint a couple of MODS to help with content and stimulating interest with other members.
Organisation and SEO
Google Pagerank for: alltechtalk.net 0/10
Alexa Rank for
http://www.alltechtalk.net - 9,055,273
DMOZ.org listed? - not listed.
Google Directory listed? - yes
Yahoo! Directory listed? - not listed
This tells me you have to do a lot of work on SEO, for a new forum it is actually a crime NOT to be listed on DMOZ, it's the one directory that all directories, even Google refer to for new sites, without it you will not increase page rank siginificantly, ( yes I do realise there are differing opinions on PR and google, but google is not the only search engine)
Words from the Reviewer
I have to be frank and say that doing this review has been a bit of a chore, your forum is just so slow, I've spent most of the time watching the ajax go round and round, and I'm on the fastest speed available in the UK, what it must be like for others I can't imagine.
Your forum needs a lot of work, you've reached the first corner, thought you were doing well, and stalled.
You must submit your site to more directories, as I said DMOZ is a must, but there are literally thousands of directories out there.
Backlinks, you need literally thousands of these, preferably follow though, don't be tempted to use link farms, or too many affiliates, these can damage your PR, backlinks have to look natural, try to leave links in relative blogs and on relative forums, these are the best kind.
Sort out your page loading speed, that can affect whether and how long people stay around for, these days longer than 2-3 secs for a page to load is a long time, use Google analytics to discover what your actual page load speed is, talk to your hosts about speeding it up.
I know you have been looking for, and seeking advice on a new theme, that at the moment is not your priority, like I said the theme grows on you, more important are the issues I've mentioned, they need attention.
Star Rating
2.
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