Your Forum Review
First Impressions & Appearance
First off, I must say that I really like your logo. It matches your forum's default theme well. I really like the text reflection on the logo and I especially like the mascot icon that reminds me of Pacman. I don't like your slogan on the banner though. Your forum is only six days old, yet you claim it is the "Best discussion forum on the web." I see slogans like that all the time. I have never understood why people will have that as their forum's slogan, it's an opinion. I think you need a fun slogan that is unique and creative. Make your forum's slogan different. If you want it to somewhat mean the same thing as your current slogan, you could have it say something like "The most bookmarked discussion forum." It means the same thing pretty much, but it's a different way of saying it. I also really don't understand why on the your forum's title (Next to favicon), you have it saying "Welcome to GD Forum." I know you would like to let everyone know how welcome they are, but I think there are better ways of sending them the welcome message. Just a simple message welcome message that only shows up for guests would be good. You could have it in a welcome box right above the Head Office category.
Next, I really think the placement of the login and register buttons shouldn't be the center of the forum. I think you should have those aligned to a particular side, preferably the left. It would probably be better to have login and register on the regular menu bar actually. I like the forum icons. They are nice and sleek. I really like the forum theme, but I see it all the time. I am almost positive I have seen that theme on many other forums. I think it would be better if you used a less popular MyBB theme for your default theme. Possibly a premium or custom theme. I really like that there is a selection of three different themes. All three of the themes are professional and attractive. It gives members a variety. It's useful for me personally, as I like the Fallsution theme the best out of the three. Overall, you have done a pretty good job with your forum's appearance.
(Score: 18/20)
Site Layout
Your forum has a total of five categories and twenty-one boards. Considering your forum's age, I really think you should have your forum started out with a much lower amount of boards. Most successful forums that I know of have started with a low amount of boards and then as they grow, more and more boards are added, until they reach the actual amount of boards the administrators want. I feel you should do the same. I think you're better off getting rid of at least five boards. It's not that hard to do either. First off, I feel you should remove the Mobile Phones board. I don't think it needs its own board, it's better off just being a sub-board. Then there's the Website / Forum World board. That would work much better as a sub-board in the Website Owner board. I think Pets & The Environment would fit better as a sub-board in one of the boards in the Lifestyle category. Also, Music & Videos and Hit The TV could be merged. Anime/Manga could be made a sub-board in Hit The TV, considering Anime/Manga isn't getting very much activity. There you have it, that's how you could get rid of five boards easily. It wouldn't hurt your forum to merge a couple categories as well. The less categories will most likely mean that the page length of the forum won't be as long. Your forum is a general discussion forum, I understand that there is a vast amount of things to discuss for forums in the general genre. So, it makes sense to have many boards, but with your forum's activity, it's a battle to keep all those boards active. So, get rid of a few of them.
(Scored 14/20)
Statistics and Activity
As of right now, your forum has accumulated 928 posts, 677 threads, and 24 registered users. Wow, your forum opened on June 4th, so your forum is only six days old. It hasn't even been a week yet, and your forum has almost hit the 1,000 posts milestone. That is a lot of posts in such a little time frame. I am really impressed by that. On the other hand, over 2/3 of the posts are threads. That's a nice statistic for threads, it shows that the community is working hard to generate discussion, but it also shows that the community is struggling when it comes to members replying to threads. Threads are of course, very important. They're not worth anything if you don't get any replies to them though. You've got so many threads, the community has done a great job creating threads. It seems that you have done a great job motivating members to create threads. Now you really need to motivate members to reply to threads. Replies is what you really need right now. 24 members already, you seem to be referring members at a pretty good rate. Keep the referring going, and hopefully members will be active. You can always persuade them to stay active by having contests, competitions, etc. Your forum's activity is great so far. I remember my forum's first week, it's usually a nice and active week. Activity does seem to usually drop after the first week from what I have seen in my personal experiences on forums. Seeing the type of close community your forum appears to be, I don't think you will have a problem with activity dropping. Overall, statistics are accumulating rapidly and activity is going pretty well. Great work, you need to start replying to threads though.
(Scored 16/20)
Staff Moderation
Your forum's staff team appears to be getting the job done when it comes to moderation. Considering your forum's age, little moderation is needed, most likely. According to the Our Staff thread in the News & Announcements board and the Forum Team page, the staff team has three members. There is one administrator, one super moderator, and one general chat staff member. That is a good amount of staff members. Considering your forum's age and activity level, I see no reason to add or remove a staff member. As your forum grows, you should consider expanding your staff team. But as of right now, your staff team has done an excellent job moderating the forum. Keep up the good work.
(Scored 20/20)
Spelling/Grammar & Professionalism
I see a few spelling and grammar mistakes. A few that I have spotted you really need to go through and fix. Your first mistake I noticed is a big spelling mistake. Look at the title of this board: "Website / Fourm World." You spelled forum wrong. It needs to be "Website / Forum World." The next mistake I noticed is the News & Announcements board description: "pertain" needs to be "pertaining." The third mistake I noticed is a spelling mistake in the Help us thread located in News & Announcements. You use the word "greatful," which isn't a word. It should be "grateful." It that same thread, you didn't you a period at the end of "Thank you." I also see meaning letters with unnecessary capitalization all over the forum. They may be little mistakes, but little mistakes can be the difference between a potential active member joining your forum. You should go through and fix the mistakes I pointed out. I didn't point out all the mistakes, so you should go through and proofread the board/sub-board descriptions, important topics, etc and fix spelling, grammar, and punctuation mistakes. It makes your forum look really unprofessional. I also went through and checked a few posts by staff members. The staff members are doing a pretty good job posting with good spelling and grammar. I see a few punctuation and capitalization mistakes though. Overall, you need to work on keeping your forum as professional as possible.
(Scored 10/20)
Total Score - 78/100
Final Remarks
GD Forum is a very nice forum. It has formed a nice active community in just under one week. That's amazing, GD Forum has a lot of potential, success is in reach. Hopefully, this review will bring your forum even closer to success.
Strong Points
Staff moderation and activity.
Things to Improve
Professionalism (spelling, grammar, punctuation, capitalization, etc.) and your forum's layout.
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