Basic Review
Site Name:Computertalkforum
Site Type:Discussion board and information site
Age: 6 months /Approx
Appearance
The whole site has a very good look and feel to it, everything is big, and to my minds tends to shout, this forum is not using a subtle approach, on the index page you are asking guests to take in a lot of information very quickly, which can be off putting for some, the sign up request, adverts, latest post etc all take time to take in.
Very pleasing is the use of one main colour throughout, it makes the whole board look better, the contrasting blues work well together and are pleasing on the eye.
Your banner is very well customised and explains the boards genre in an instant, you are completely aware of what the site/forum is about.
Personally I find the size of the social media buttons way too big, but in saying that they do fit in with the way the whole forum "shouts" at you, I'm not sure that approach appeals to a large number of people.
To sum it up the whole board is a bit "in your face".
Layout
The layout is no different to another really, nothing exciting going on, the sidebar is on the traditional side, sometimes I want to see a forum that is "different", this one isn't.
Three main categories means the index page is well within my scroll limit, titles for the forums are well thought out, and make it obvious what goes where.
The navigation was a little confusing, you have in the navbar two links to forums, however the "Computertalkforum" link takes you to a Blog? info page?, that could do with sorting out, a small glitch I know.
Statistics and Activity
Post count is good, just over 3k for a forum about six months old shows steady growth of around 500 a month, you membership figures look good, but a large proportion of these have zero posts, so the figure of 242 members is a little misleading as with that number you would expect more than 3k in posts !.
The fact you have so many members with less than ten posts has to be of concern, and is an issue you need to address.
One of the problems small forums have is that they can appear to a clique, a gang if you like, this can put off new members from contributing.
Content
Content from what I can see is good, it's informative where it needs to be, the one thing I don't like is Ads in posts, I know others feel the same, but adblock will cure that problem. you have a good choice of forums for discussion, but they are all a bit specialised so the niche and appeal is going to be limited, and there are a lot more established forums in this niche.
Posts are spread fairly evenly across the whole of the board, so the interest must be there in the first place.
Organisation and SEO
Google Pagerank for: computertalkforum.com 2/10
Alexa Rank for http://www.computertalkforum.com - 1,061,968
DMOZ.org listed? - not listed.
Google Directory listed? - yes
Yahoo! Directory listed? - not listed
Domain age? check...
Domain history? - yes
Not being listed with DMOZ is really a cardinal sin, this is the directory that all the decent directories use for sites to crawl.
With the activity you have a Google PR of 2 is what I would expect for a forum this old.
You need to work on SEO, and promotion if you want to take the forum further, you've paid a great deal of detail in how the forum works, now is the time for you to put that detail into your SEO and promotion.
Words from the Reviewer
Despite the forum shouting at you as soon as you land on the page, the over look and feel is very good, it's not a forum I would join, that is down to the small niche in which it sits.
Improvements mainly need to be concentrated on SEO and promotion, working your way to a higher PR by the next update.
In order to do this, yourself and Co-admin will need to work very hard, not just on SEO, but on your contribution to the board as well, try to work on the philosophy that every post deserves a reply, a big ethic I know, but if you are not responding to members posts, how can you expect members to, it's up to you to stimulate the debate as well.
I'm going to give you 3 stars,mainly down to the lack of SEO, and the way the board tends to shout a little when you hit that index page, apart from that, I feel you have a very solid base to build a successful forum, I don't think you will have thousands of members contributing on a daily basis, because the niche is so small, however you can from this build a loyal membership.
Star Rating
3.
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