Forum Web Hosting - Need 1+ feedback/review(s) from all of you!

[Kaynil]

Hey, Tommy M.

I am not sure how different your landing page renders for me from what @Grimalkin sees, but this is how it looks for me:

Spoiler: screen capture of Forumweb.hosting

I can clearly see your adverts (host X now top right banner, and a column of adverts in the right side panel), even with my adblocker active. In fact, when I deactivated it and reloaded the page I didn't notice a difference, so I think your adverts are getting through just fine, at least when it comes to uBlock and chrome.

I hope that helps. 🙂

 

[Deleted member 17779]

The screenshot that @Kaynil provided is that exact some thing that I see when I look at your site. The adverts in the right side panel, is that what you meant when you were talking about the ads? I can clearly see those. I thought you were talking about something different when you mentioned the ads.

 

[Tommy M.]

Hey, Tommy M.

I am not sure how different your landing page renders for me from what @Grimalkin sees, but this is how it looks for me:

Spoiler: screen capture of Forumweb.hosting

I can clearly see your adverts (host X now top right banner, and a column of adverts in the right side panel), even with my adblocker active. In fact, when I deactivated it and reloaded the page I didn't notice a difference, so I think your adverts are getting through just fine, at least when it comes to uBlock and chrome.

I hope that helps. 🙂

Thanks for letting me know this, I thought it can be hid on your browser by any ad blockers.
Just a quick question, do you thin it has many banner ads on my forum? I am going to stop offering banner ads at this time because felling it has so many there.

 

[Kaynil]

Just a quick question, do you thin it has many banner ads on my forum? I am going to stop offering banner ads at this time because feeling it has so many there.

I think you do have many banner ads. The saving grace with your web is that the adverts are related so they, for the most part, blend. I do agree that it'd be wise not to add any more. Reducing the number a bit as the current deals expire should work. Another alternative could be using some sort of rotation rather than displaying everything all the time.

 

[Tommy M.]

I think you do have many banner ads. The saving grace with your web is that the adverts are related so they, for the most part, blend. I do agree that it'd be wise not to add any more. Reducing the number a bit as the current deals expire should work.

I understand and this is making me headache because I am having too many contacts and requesting to have banner ads on the forums. I could not refuse because it's requests from my customers/advertisers. If I refuse, I can lose my customers.

Another alternative could be using some sort of rotation rather than displaying everything all the time.

Are you sure rotated banner will work?
Because more people didn't want their banners to be rotated.
Have you tried this on your forum?

 

[Kaynil]

Hi, Tommy M.
I am in no way a professional when it comes to dealing with advertisers but I'll try to answer your queries.

Are you sure rotated banner will work? Because more people didn't want their banners to be rotated.

I can't be sure it will work and if you have already been told by your customers this is not what they want then nevermind the idea.

I understand and this is making me headache because I am having too many contacts and requesting to have banner ads on the forums. I could not refuse because it's requests from my customers/advertisers. If I refuse, I can lose my customers.

Yeah, it is a tight spot and it is not easy to find a balance. If you can't reduce the number of spots due to high demand that is fair enough, I just recommend you not to increase the number of adverts you already have.

The only idea that I can think up in your position would be to shorten the time exposed people can buy at once for a few days (adjusting the prices accordingly) and having a queue they can check on so they know when their adverts will be live could help. That way more of them will have a chance to get exposition.

Sounds like you're a tight spot right now. We have a section called Brainstorming, where members can explain their forum's situation and ask the community to help you come up with ideas. It might be worth a shot that you make a thread describing the problem you're having about the demand of adverts, how you feel you have many as it is but that you don't want to lose them. Explain your situation the best you can and hopefully some members will be up to give you some tips, advice or the insight you need. I wish you best of luck.

 

[Tommy M.]

Yeah, it is a tight spot and it is not easy to find a balance. If you can't reduce the number of spots due to high demand that is fair enough, I just recommend you not to increase the number of adverts you already have.

It is a good suggestion, another solutions is increase pricing on each banner ad so we will have less banners but number of clicks will increase. What do you think we should do that?

The only idea that I can think up in your position would be to shorten the time exposed people can buy at once for a few days (adjusting the prices accordingly)...

It is good to check number of impressions and clicks to banner ad but for some days, it is too short because we can consume more time on dealing questions and adding banner ads.That's can be not worth.

 

[Kaynil]

another solutions is increase pricing on each banner ad so we will have less banners but number of clicks will increase. What do you think we should do that?

You have to find the equilibrium between demand and supply that works the best for you and your clients. You have high demand and short supply so increasing the prices would make fewer people ask for them but those who do will pay more. It sounds like a good idea to me.

 

[Tommy M.]

another solutions is increase pricing on each banner ad so we will have less banners but number of clicks will increase. What do you think we should do that?

You have to find the equilibrium between demand and supply that works the best for you and your clients. You have high demand and short supply so increasing the prices would make fewer people ask for them but those who do will pay more. It sounds like a good idea to me.

Thanks for your advice
Increasing price is not a good idea because we don't want advertisers come our forum spend more for ads, we want them to have more benefit than what they paid for.
We am still having contacted to have banner ads on our site daily but we think we (or my admin) should limit number of banners on our sites.

Regards,
Tommy

 

[Jax]

J A X ' S R E V I E W
​

Review Date: 25/02/17
Unofficial Review By Jax

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS
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When I first visited your site, I did find your site rather cluttered, I am a minimalist designer which is why I am not a big fan of the sites design. having said that I got what your site was about within 30 seconds of visiting. There is a lot going on and there is little to know white space. Your forum is a cross between blog and forum which I think is quite cool.

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DESIGN
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​

I am going, to be honest, so if you do not like my critic here you can just ignore it. I really like the colour scheme of your site, it is well matched to the overall style of the site, the user groups even complement the theme which is perfect.

The site could use some white space if you don't get what I mean let me explain. Your content lacks, breathing room. I would recommend that you create a two column to a three column layout, having four columns of content is just too much. I feel that reducing the amount of columns would increase the white space which will make it easier on the eyes.

On the actual forum boards, the layout is very clean and very well designed. I actually prefer the simple forum layout than the front pages complexity. Very good so far.

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CODE
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Here is some stats of your code test:

• A total of 866 errors and 224 warnings were found on the 5 pages tested.

• No pages are W3C compliant. Because there are errors in the code, some web browsers may not be able to read this website correctly and it may not always display correctly.Show recommendations

• 5 of the pages of this website were found to use presentational HTML elements and/or attributes. It is widely regarded that use of presentational HTML like <font> and <p bgcolor="#FF0000"> should be avoided. Show recommendations

• None of the tested pages of this site use tables for layout. This is excellent, as using tables for layout is not necessary and they should only contain tabular data. A well-built website should use div elements and CSS to create the desired layout.

More info: http://nibbler.silktide.com/en_US/reports/forumweb.hosting

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SUMMARY
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In conclusion, you have a great site with an active community. I would suggest reducing the columns to a three column layout as I feel it would look better than the current four. The design is right on trend with flat style. it also has great colour balance.

The only issues I have with your site is it can appear a little confusing for a new visitor, there is some code pointers that may need to be corrected in the future. I wish you the best of luck with your site it is great. I enjoyed reviewing your site.

 

[Tommy M.]

First off, I want to like your post and your feedback.
I am pretty busy on our forums at this time thus I will answer with details on each paragraph (your reviews) next days for which you gave to our forum in the post above.
Thank you!

 

[Tommy M.]

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FIRST IMPRESSIONS
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​

When I first visited your site, I did find your site rather cluttered, I am a minimalist designer which is why I am not a big fan of the sites design. having said that I got what your site was about within 30 seconds of visiting. There is a lot going on and there is little to know white space. Your forum is a cross between blog and forum which I think is quite cool.

You are right, I read many comments from everyone, they said it is a bit difficult to understand the homepage in the first visiting. I will take care on this and will improve it and make it more simpler.

Yes it is pretty slow now because it is having many banners on the homepage, there is a person mentioned about its speed.
https://forumweb.hosting/15588-how-does-member-of-month-is-decided.html?p=96719#post96719
We will try to improve loading speed for our forum by moving to a new dedicated server soon.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESIGN
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
​

I am going, to be honest, so if you do not like my critic here you can just ignore it. I really like the colour scheme of your site, it is well matched to the overall style of the site, the user groups even complement the theme which is perfect.

The site could use some white space if you don't get what I mean let me explain. Your content lacks, breathing room. I would recommend that you create a two column to a three column layout, having four columns of content is just too much. I feel that reducing the amount of columns would increase the white space which will make it easier on the eyes.

On the actual forum boards, the layout is very clean and very well designed. I actually prefer the simple forum layout than the front pages complexity. Very good so far.

Just curious, what is your screen size?

It was designed on a monitor 27" thus it will not be good when viewing on a monitor 19" but we will improve this in the next update.

I would recommend that you create a two column to a three column layout, having four columns of content is just too much. I feel that reducing the amount of columns would increase the white space which will make it easier on the eyes. ​

This is in our plans and will do soon.

Thanks and regards,

 

[Jax]

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
​

When I first visited your site, I did find your site rather cluttered, I am a minimalist designer which is why I am not a big fan of the sites design. having said that I got what your site was about within 30 seconds of visiting. There is a lot going on and there is little to know white space. Your forum is a cross between blog and forum which I think is quite cool.

You are right, I read many comments from everyone, they said it is a bit difficult to understand the homepage in the first visiting. I will take care on this and will improve it and make it more simpler.

Yes it is pretty slow now because it is having many banners on the homepage, there is a person mentioned about its speed.
https://forumweb.hosting/15588-how-does-member-of-month-is-decided.html?p=96719#post96719
We will try to improve loading speed for our forum by moving to a new dedicated server soon.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESIGN
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
​

I am going, to be honest, so if you do not like my critic here you can just ignore it. I really like the colour scheme of your site, it is well matched to the overall style of the site, the user groups even complement the theme which is perfect.

The site could use some white space if you don't get what I mean let me explain. Your content lacks, breathing room. I would recommend that you create a two column to a three column layout, having four columns of content is just too much. I feel that reducing the amount of columns would increase the white space which will make it easier on the eyes.

On the actual forum boards, the layout is very clean and very well designed. I actually prefer the simple forum layout than the front pages complexity. Very good so far.

Just curious, what is your screen size?

It was designed on a monitor 27" thus it will not be good when viewing on a monitor 19" but we will improve this in the next update.

I would recommend that you create a two column to a three column layout, having four columns of content is just too much. I feel that reducing the amount of columns would increase the white space which will make it easier on the eyes. ​

This is in our plans and will do soon.

Thanks and regards,

Hi again!

It should not matter what screen size I have as the website should be either responsive using % or adaptive using media queries and should resize to that screen.

4 columns is still too much. Things I remember is that you should have max 3 columns and text should have max 13 words per line.

This stuff is made complex by the multiple screen sizes

 

[Tommy M.]

It should not matter what screen size I have as the website should be either responsive using % or adaptive using media queries and should resize to that screen.

No, I don't think so, if you see it on a monitor more than 24 inches then it is quite different and will fit all conditions that users here wanted to have, that's more space on forum homepage.

4 columns is still too much. Things I remember is that you should have max 3 columns and text should have max 13 words per line.

13 words per line for forum description?
I think if I show 3 columns on the homepage then it will more space but will have less forum to be displayed there.

This stuff is made complex by the multiple screen sizes

I don't understand this, can you share a screenshot what you are talking about?

 

[DudeThatsErin]

Your website looks extremely busy. My eyes aren't sure where to look first. There are way too many images on the main page and the advertisement blinking at me is getting my attention more than your site is as a whole.

Your logo looks like a child made it. I get the whole 3 stacked servers to make an E but it doesn't look right. It looks weird having them their. The colors look childish as well.

Also, the 'what is sending spam to my server' image is not done all that well. The server in the foreground is very blurry and the spam is obviously not supposed to be there. It just looks extremely weird and unprofessional.

As far as the first review I saw stating that they couldn't tell what CMS you are using, I could tell right off the bat that you were using vB. Why? Because I know tons of android websites use vB and they look similar to your's.

Looking at your footer, I can barely see the "more..." links and the "forum" from "forumweb.hosting" They are too dark and almost hurt my eyes.

Scrolling back up to just above the hosting offers, why is this so busy? Why do you have so much going on? I'm not sure where to look and I'm not sure where my eyes should go...

Think about it this way, you have 30 seconds to attract new members. THIRTY.... SECONDS. If even that long. In that time you have to impress them and make them want to join. With this site, the only reason why I would want to join is to advertise my hosting website. I wouldn't know where to post though and I would get more frustrated than not with your site right now.

Overall, I really dislike the way you set up your forums. It is just way to busy and I can't even discern what is what and where I should post if I should join.

Also, I like how you don't have very many ads but the ads you do have mixed with the pictures you have for each forum category really makes for a messy site. It is cohesive and doesn't help guide me to where I'm supposed to post.

 

[Tommy M.]

. There are way too many images on the main page and the advertisement blinking at me is getting my attention more than your site is as a whole.

Can you post a screenshot which you are seeing? What is your monitor size?
Because I am viewing it quite good on my PC. I can show you a screenshot on my ends.

I get the whole 3 stacked servers to make an E but it doesn't look right. It looks weird having them their.

Maybe you are right on this, the logo will be improve soon!

Also, the 'what is sending spam to my server' image is not done all that well. The server in the foreground is very blurry and the spam is obviously not supposed to be there. It just looks extremely weird and unprofessional.

This making people thinking more than seeing it.
Perhaps, I need to hear other opinions on this.

As far as the first review I saw stating that they couldn't tell what CMS you are using, I could tell right off the bat that you were using vB. Why? Because I know tons of android websites use vB and they look similar to your's.

Can you show me some?
I would like to check if they are similar.

Looking at your footer, I can barely see the "more..." links and the "forum" from "forumweb.hosting" They are too dark and almost hurt my eyes.

Could not make them brighter, it will hurt your eyes more if I make it too bright.

Overall, I really dislike the way you set up your forums. It is just way to busy and I can't even discern what is what and where I should post if I should join.

I understand, if you spend some minutes to post or checking forums out there, you will feel acquainted with it and feel it is quite easy to use. 🙂

Thanks for your reviews!

 

[DudeThatsErin]

. There are way too many images on the main page and the advertisement blinking at me is getting my attention more than your site is as a whole.

Can you post a screenshot which you are seeing? What is your monitor size?
Because I am viewing it quite good on my PC. I can show you a screenshot on my ends.

Monitor size doesn't matter. On this screenshot I count 12 pictures not including your weird logo. Even if my monitor isn't as good as mine is, you are throwing too much at the visitors at once.

You have 3 seconds to win over a visitor. THREE. SECONDS. That is a tiny amount of time and by this, I am not won over and I'm sure a lot of visitors would agree with me. This just scares me away. Idk what kind of site this is, almost seems like a blog, not a forum. But the .hosting makes me think it should be a hosting website. Too many different things being thrown at me. I'm not sure what to think.

I get the whole 3 stacked servers to make an E but it doesn't look right. It looks weird having them their.

Maybe you are right on this, the logo will be improve soon!

Also, the 'what is sending spam to my server' image is not done all that well. The server in the foreground is very blurry and the spam is obviously not supposed to be there. It just looks extremely weird and unprofessional.

This making people thinking more than seeing it.
Perhaps, I need to hear other opinions on this.

Slright... I don't see how that makes people think... I understand the whole 'pictures are worth a thousand words' but this one (without the writing) just shows spam bombs hitting a server... that doesn't make me think at all.

If you want to get new people to join you have THREE. SECONDS. Like I said earlier. You cannot make a new visitor think in that amount of time and to try will only make your new member's numbers drop. You are taking on an impossible task.

As far as the first review I saw stating that they couldn't tell what CMS you are using, I could tell right off the bat that you were using vB. Why? Because I know tons of android websites use vB and they look similar to your's.

Can you show me some?
I would like to check if they are similar.

http://xdadevelopers.com/

https://forums.androidcentral.com/

https://forums.imore.com/

Just to name a few.

Looking at your footer, I can barely see the "more..." links and the "forum" from "forumweb.hosting" They are too dark and almost hurt my eyes.

Could not make them brighter, it will hurt your eyes more if I make it too bright.

Then change the color altogether? Is this not possible for some unknown reason?

Overall, I really dislike the way you set up your forums. It is just way to busy and I can't even discern what is what and where I should post if I should join.

I understand, if you spend some minutes to post or checking forums out there, you will feel acquainted with it and feel it is quite easy to use. 🙂

Thanks for your reviews!

New visitors are not going to spend 'some minutes' checking out new forums out there. You can't expect them to either. It shows you have 3200+ guests online right now... guess how many are going to join? Around 100. That is around 1/3rd of guests and while that is a good number, 2/3rds are better... you can do 2/3rds if you don't make it so busy. If you make it a lot simpler for members you will get a lot more online.

 

[TradingCardMakers]

Hello Tommy and I wanted to say you have an outstanding website/forums I will get more more in depth on the forums soon.

I love how the homepage looks because the main thing I think about is when I go to a website is how busy the google crawlers are, on your homepage they are most probably going crazy with all the links you got on the homepage, I also love all the articles you got going I learnt a few things my self from these articles so they are good from a out side point of view.

The home page positioning and lay out is simplistic but yet elegant and not to crazy on the eyes.

Now that I have mention what I think on the homepage I will now move on to the forums.

On the navigation bar when clicking on forums it should link you to all the whole forums instead it directs you back to the homepage. This will make the crawlers search your whole entire forums I also do like how you have a drop down menu for your forums as well but I reckon it would be better if you could click the forums link and then it shows you the whole forums instead of searching for what you want but that's my two cent. Lastly I wanna say on how good you moderators are.. They are extremely quick and helpful I have tested by spaming and asking for help and a few moderators deleted my spam and also helped me with a subject I wanted to know on so good job on getting a proper staff team.

Other than that you have done extremely well for how long you have had the site/forums for.

Keep up the grind Tommy and well done!

 

[Tommy M.]

As i see your screenshot then seem you are using a 27 inches monitor but you still say it is more complex on the homepage. Could not understand that because with big monitor then the design has more space and easy on eyes.

Slright... I don't see how that makes people think... I understand the whole 'pictures are worth a thousand words' but this one (without the writing) just shows spam bombs hitting a server... that doesn't make me think at all.

That's a way to attract viewers, and obviously it got good result and effective as expected (number of views and clicks to that post)

If you want to get new people to join you have THREE. SECONDS. Like I said earlier. You cannot make a new visitor think in that amount of time and to try will only make your new member's numbers drop. You are taking on an impossible task.

I will have to think about this. Thanks

Just to name a few.

Thanks for some links, I checked those sites and understand why they put a lot going on their forums like that...I don't want to discuss about this futher, it is just a thing relate to techniques.

Then change the color altogether? Is this not possible for some unknown reason?

What do you mean?

If you make it a lot simpler for members you will get a lot more online.

Thanks for this advice and I will try to apply it soon and see how it works.

 

[Jericho]

I feel like you have had some harsh criticism here, for a website that has launched in 2016 you seem to be doing extremely well with activity and posts. You should be proud of this and there clearly is a reason for this.

I will admit, when first viewing your website I felt slightly overwhelmed by the sheer amount of content on the homepage but it didn't take me too long to find my way around.

As far as the logo is concerned I would improve it, it's something your audience will remember you for. If you can't design yourself I suggest getting it made by a professional, it will be worth it.

Overall it's a good site, it just needs a few improvements to make it great.