Measuring Success

[Deleted member 7467]

So, I feel the concept of success is subjective to the site's founders/owners. I might visit a forum with 2 posts a day and think it's dead. However, the owner(s) of that forum are thrilled to have 2 posts a day. My question to forum owners is simple: what is your metric for the success of your forum? Do you value a certain post count a day? Is your goal member attainment? Do you look at the post to user ratio? Something else entirely? How do you define success and how does your forum match up to those standards you developed?

From a user perspective, I think I'd rather see a smaller core user base with higher post to user ratios than a forum with oodles of members with 0-1 posts each. I think this probably scales to the website's general size as well. A larger forum might have a lower post to user ratio but maintain a solid core of active posters that keep content flowing.

 

[meetdilip]

It depends on your goals. If you want to make money, hit fame etc, you will have to deal with a lot of different metrics. Personally, I like forums to be a place to learn, help and share. Once I feel that a forum is doing that, I am happy.

 

[MrDawn]

I think a successful forum is one that has a domain name, is super easy to find on the Google search and you have a lot of active members and staff posting content on a day to day, week to week basis.

or maybe my standards are just too high.