All,
Tonight I made a few changes on the site and I wanted to explain a few why's...... Before I get into it too far I wanted to let you all know that I ran the changes by the mods and admins and even a few old timers like zukracer, skydiver, bluehaya, warp10 and several more for input and ideas...
Now here is the why......
About a year ago we started seeing a lot of mobile users accessing the site, members at work, waiting for the bus, at lunch making the site more convenient just to check in. Over the past year this new feature has really started to affect the site... Here are a few facts.
1. The average mobile user accesses the site for roughly 4 minutes.
2. The average mobile user view 3 pages per visit
3. The average computer user accesses the site for 8 minutes
4. The average computer user views 7 pages per visit
We also know that most people that do post from a mobile device do not post in depth comments or threads. The goal for mobile was to allow members to post one liner responses with maybe a picture of lunch or the side of the road. What has occurred is that members are checking in to see what is going on and never logging into a computer...
Why is all of this important? Banners is how we have made the money on the site in the most recent years, we get money from Google when we present an ad and we get even more money if you click a banner and go look at something.. We are down to 12 advertisers from over 20 and when you take in account the lower computer traffic less banners are being viewed which means less opportunities for banners to be put in front of the members.
Over time banners have changed sizes, you can see the standard banners that we have always had for our site sponsors like Honda East and Powerhouse still work well for members to have a quick reference the rest of the web has moved past those types of banners and on to different sizes. I have removed 3 banners from the bottom of the site or in the threads and replaced them with two square banners at the first and last post in each thread. The members I have queried have told me that they are not too intrusive and that posting and reading is not affected.
Because we have seen a large piece of our traffic go mobile I have been working on a way to get banners in the mobile content, it has taken a long time but I finally have that working too. If you use forum runner you should see several banners now rotating, some are house ads from our direct advertisers and some are from Google... We do our best to keep the site free and to use advertising to keep the site moving... As with any good business we make adjustments before there is a problem so we simply ask you to bear with us and let us do some fine tuning.
I have been asked about opening donations again and in my experience that just opens the door for problems, if you can be patient with us and let us work this out then no one really has to spend a dime.
As always we are open to ideas and suggestions but just like many other businesses and companies in the US this forum is struggling just like most other folks in this industry....
Please let me know your thoughts....
cap
Tonight I made a few changes on the site and I wanted to explain a few why's...... Before I get into it too far I wanted to let you all know that I ran the changes by the mods and admins and even a few old timers like zukracer, skydiver, bluehaya, warp10 and several more for input and ideas...
Now here is the why......
About a year ago we started seeing a lot of mobile users accessing the site, members at work, waiting for the bus, at lunch making the site more convenient just to check in. Over the past year this new feature has really started to affect the site... Here are a few facts.
1. The average mobile user accesses the site for roughly 4 minutes.
2. The average mobile user view 3 pages per visit
3. The average computer user accesses the site for 8 minutes
4. The average computer user views 7 pages per visit
We also know that most people that do post from a mobile device do not post in depth comments or threads. The goal for mobile was to allow members to post one liner responses with maybe a picture of lunch or the side of the road. What has occurred is that members are checking in to see what is going on and never logging into a computer...
Why is all of this important? Banners is how we have made the money on the site in the most recent years, we get money from Google when we present an ad and we get even more money if you click a banner and go look at something.. We are down to 12 advertisers from over 20 and when you take in account the lower computer traffic less banners are being viewed which means less opportunities for banners to be put in front of the members.
Over time banners have changed sizes, you can see the standard banners that we have always had for our site sponsors like Honda East and Powerhouse still work well for members to have a quick reference the rest of the web has moved past those types of banners and on to different sizes. I have removed 3 banners from the bottom of the site or in the threads and replaced them with two square banners at the first and last post in each thread. The members I have queried have told me that they are not too intrusive and that posting and reading is not affected.
Because we have seen a large piece of our traffic go mobile I have been working on a way to get banners in the mobile content, it has taken a long time but I finally have that working too. If you use forum runner you should see several banners now rotating, some are house ads from our direct advertisers and some are from Google... We do our best to keep the site free and to use advertising to keep the site moving... As with any good business we make adjustments before there is a problem so we simply ask you to bear with us and let us do some fine tuning.
I have been asked about opening donations again and in my experience that just opens the door for problems, if you can be patient with us and let us work this out then no one really has to spend a dime.
As always we are open to ideas and suggestions but just like many other businesses and companies in the US this forum is struggling just like most other folks in this industry....
Please let me know your thoughts....
cap
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