Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
When a potential user visits your forum, you want them to have excellent first impressions. I honestly had first impressions that weren't excellent, but they were still pretty good. So, I noticed a few things that could possibly be improved or implemented though. First, I am an extremely big fan of your logo. It's nice and glossy, which creates a very professional feeling to it. Plus, the "DN" matches the category titles and the "Temple" matches the main color in the color scheme pretty well. The "Temple" just seems to have a little too much blue in it compared to the color scheme though. Secondly, why is your forum using the default IPB favicon? Your forum needs its own custom favicon. It could have "DNT" on it maybe (that would be hard to fit on it, I Know) or you could have some kind of icon that represents domains, temples, or being a webmaster.
Thirdly, I like your forum ranks. They go well with the forum. Rank images are simply a cool thing to have. I don't believe they are original though, I am pretty sure I have seen them before. They're either default for IPB, they're premade, or you have used the set on one of your former forums. Either way, your forum should have custom ranks if possible. Fourthly, I like the board icons. They are attractive and the pattern on them matches the rest of the theme. Lastly, I like your forum's theme. It's certainly nice, I'm pretty sure it's a premium theme? I have seen it used on a few other forums though. I feel it's a little too commonly used. The theme looks fantastic, but it's used pretty often, so it's definitely not unique. Overall, I had pretty good first impressions, but there are a couple problems I noticed, and your forum's default theme seems to be used often. I wish you the best of luck making improvements.
(Score: 17/20)
Site Layout
Your layout is setup pretty nicely, but I still feel it needs some work. It's a unique layout, but that doesn't mean it's a good layout. It may be different, but is it effective? I don't imagine it is. First, your forum has twenty-five boards in eight categories. That is far too many boards. You have started out your board layout way too big. This amount of boards may be acceptable once your forum is grown later down the road, but the size of your layout is simply unnecessary right now, and it isn't helping your forum. Your forum has so many boards, that it seems to be a struggle to keep them all somewhat active. It's obvious that there's a struggle because there are a few boards without a single posts, and a lot of the boards have went at least a couple days without a post. There's just no reason to have such a huge layout right now. It just isn't beneficial.
So, what can you do about this issue? You obviously merge boards, make changes, and do what you can to minimize the amount of boards. I'll start you off. I think the "The Market" category could all be merged into one board and then be moved to the "WebMaster Section" category. Secondly, I feel you could merge "Web Designing" category into one board and have it as a board in the "WebMaster Section" category, and you could maybe go further by then merging the "Language Coding, Scripts, Etc" board and the "Website Resources" board all into one board, with sub-boards. You could then change the title of the board to like "Website Arts & Resources." Thirdly, I feel you could turn the "Website Monitization" category into only two boards, instead of four. You could then move those two boards to the "Domains Related" category and changing the category to "Domain Discussion & Website Monitization." Fourthly, I feel you could have the "Domain Testimonials" board as a simple topic pinned topic in the "Feedback & Suggestions" board, as it is basically feedback. Lastly, I feel the "Welcome Aboard" board should be moved to the top category, so people will actually see it. Overall, I suggested like a complete layout remodel, I suggest you make these changes, but even just doing a few of these changes will help in the long run. Good luck!
(Scored 13/20)
Statistics and Activity
As of right now, your forum has accumulated 476 posts by 22 members. If I only knew this information and I didn't know when your forum opened, I would have probably said that these statistics aren't too good. Your forum only just opened on October 22nd though, so the statistics are actually decent. Your forum has nearly five hundred posts after being open for nearly ten days, so that averages out to around fifty posts per day. That's not amazing, but if your forum can do fifty posts a day, then your forum's statistics will eventually get somewhere. Plus, consistent posting is always a good thing, even if it's only fifty posts.
Next, your forum has an average of about 22 posts per member. That's a good statistic considering your forum's genre. Forums usually webmaster-related have small posts per member ratios for some reason. That's what I have noticed in my experiences anyways. Now, to the activity. This is what really seems to be a problem. Your forum has only had sixteen posts today. That is definitely not the same as fifty posts a day. The two staff members only have six of these sixteen posts as well. When your forum's activity is struggling, the staff members should step up be posting more than six posts a day, as when a forum's activity is struggling, what the staff members bring to the table is crucial. I also noticed that there are like five boards without a single post. You don't want empty boards. You should have had those boards with opening content in them from the start. Also, some boards have went a few days without a post in them. That shouldn't happen. Overall, the statistics are decent considering your forum's age, but the activity needs a lot of work. Good luck improving activity.
(Scored 14/20)
Staff Moderation
There's not much to say about staff moderation. It appears to me that your staff team is getting the job done. I don't see anything bad that needs to be moderated. I really doubt there is any trouble going on in the first place though. Your forum is very young and with the guidelines you have about quality posts, people are most likely reluctant to break rules as they may then not be able to get the domain they want. So, I can bet that your staff team has a pretty easy job, but I'm sure you still have to go through posts to make sure they are of high quality before giving people domains.
Next, let's focus on your staff team. Your staff team is small. There are only two staff teams. One is an administrator (you) and one is a global moderator. I think it's safe to say your staff team is the perfect size. Your forum doesn't have much going on right now with it being so young, so I can assure you two staff members is enough for now and you won't need anymore staff members until your forum has grown a bit. By having only two staff members though, a lot should be expected from these two staff members. They need to be pretty active. I feel they should at least be a bit more active then they are now. Three posts a day each is not going to cut it. Posting by the staff members is really necessary when your forum is so young. Overall, moderation is fine and your staff team is the perfect size right now.
(Scored 19/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
Both of the staff members seem to be posting professionally. I feel Allan may slack a bit though. I read a few posts where he didn't use proper punctuation and I read multiple posts where he used text talk. These two things shouldn't be acceptable. On some forum genres it would be okay, but on a webmaster (domain related) forum, it shouldn't be. I have read some of your posts though, and they are very nice. You are certainly doing a great job. Allan is doing pretty good, he just doesn't seem to be doing as good as what should be expected from him.
Now, let's get to the spelling and grammar mistakes. First, in the "Announcements" board description, "Staff" doesn't need a capital letter and "Recommend all users read." is a weird sentence. I'm not sure if it's incorrect, but I feel a pronoun is needed in front of it. I think it should be "We recommend all users read." Secondly, in the "Cash out for domain!" board description, the first period needs to be within the quotes. Thirdly, in the "Domain Talk" board description, the period needs to be within the quotes once more. Also, "Domains" doesn't really need to have a capital letter. Fourthly, in the "A Designer's Resources" board description, "Designer's" is correct in the board title, but it's not correctly used in the board description. In the board description, it needs to just be "designers." Lastly, in the "Domain Sales" board description, "Sell" doesn't need to be capitalized. Overall, good work on professionalism, but there were a few spelling and grammar mistakes I noticed. Good luck!
(Scored 17/20)
Total Score - 80/100
Final Remarks
Strong Points
Your forum's appearance and staff team.
Things to Improve
Your forum's layout and activity.
After reading your review, please click here to rate our service.
The Team Leader will deduct the cash from your account shortly.
