Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance - (Out of 20)
One aspect of your site I immediately noticed and liked was your domain name. It’s really neat because it’s original, catchy, and easy to remember. Very nice job on that one. I also liked your theme. It was simple, yet also elegant. Your logo was professional, as a web host should be. Your icons were custom, which was a plus, as was your favicon. I’m not a huge fan of unread threads being italic. That’s just difficult to read. Maybe you could make them bold? Other than that, however, your appearance was fine. One thing that could be clarified, however, is what the connect to [site] actually does. I clicked Facebook as a test, and it told me what you wanted access to. That’s great, but what is the benefit? I don’t want to give access to my info unless I know what I’m about to do.
(Scored 18/20)
Site Layout - (Out of 20)
One thing I noticed immediately that you really need to fix is that your “request new hosting” board is viewable to the public. This is a horrible idea. This requires that users post their full name, email, and other personal information publicly for everyone to see. This kind of stuff really should be done via a form that gets sent to your staff only, or you could use a MOD that allows created topics to only be viewable by staff. I would never request hosting on a site that would make me give away my information like that.
As far as all the other layout things, everything looks fine. Your boards are categorized correctly. I would normally say you have too many forums, but since you’re a post 2 host forum, I’ll excuse that. You want members enough topics to discuss about to reach their quota. The only board I would really eliminate some child boards on would be Buy/Sell/Trade. Let’s be honest; who is really going to be selling a ton of stuff on a web hosting site? There’s no need for all those different subforums.
One feature I found a bit silly was the IRC chat. The theme went nothing with your site, and let’s be honest, what situation would the IRC be better than your shoutbox? It’s better to simplify than have a feature-bloated site.
(Scored 13/20)
Statistics and Activity - (Out of 20)
Your forum has been open about 4 months or so. For that amount of time, 2K+ posts is pretty good. On a site like yours, though, it’s more the number of people hosting sites that matter. You have about 6 or 7. That’s not great, but it’s certainly not bad. I think once you start promoting more, and get more people to recommend your service, you’ll take off more. It’s hard to judge “young” forums like yours, because there simply hasn’t been enough time to judge fairly.
(Scored 17/20)
Staff Moderation - (Out of 20)
Let’s talk about your points section. One thing you really need to get rid of is selling Steam accounts. This is completely in violation of Steam’s EULA, and could get those accounts banned. Also, these offers are pretty shady. My Ad Blocker completely blocked them, which is not a good sign. These things usually send you a ton of spam via email and snail mail, so you should probably warn people of that. As far as your staff, they seemed very active, which is good. They also seemed to do a good job of keeping things maintained.
(Scored 16/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism - (Out of 20)
There are a few errors I noticed in your forum descriptions.
“All important announcements, events and forum rules are made here, please read them carefully!” should be, “All important announcements, events and forum rules are made here. Please read them carefully!” (Run-on sentences are bad.)
“Post your suggestions for our website and also post any other comments related to us.” should be, “Post your suggestions for our website, and also post any other comments related to us.”
“New to the forum? Post an introduction and say Hi to the community.” should be, “New to the forum? Post an introduction, and say “Hi” to the community.”
Those were mostly minor errors. They’re also easily fixed. I’d give all your board descriptions a check, just to be on the safe side.
(Scored 18/20)
Total Score – 82 (Out of 100)
Final Remarks: You’ve got a great site with only a few drawbacks.
What was most liked about the website/forums: Activity
What was disliked most about the website/forums: Layout
How could I get you (The Reviewer) to join my website? Make the request hosting private.
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