12 Things Not to do on your website

This totally makes sense why my blog hasn't even made a dime, I think it is time to remove Kontera and try something else as that uses link ads located in the posts themselves. Seems like I should start updating it more and trying other things that would create better revenue, it's time for a change and reading this here has made me see it even more clear then I've seen anything in ages. Time to get to work, I've been learning a lot from here and happy to make changes for the better of myself and content for my readers and followers.

 

*Phew*

My site appears safe. xD

 

HA! I'm seeing more and more of number ten, these days. I guess it's contagious, . That, or new admins are just being a little overzealous in trying to make their forum better than the last one they belonged to.

 

Thanks for such an amazing article CM30. I will admit that I have committed first 2 mistakes time and again. Mixing ads with content in hope that they will click on ads inadvertently never fared well for me.

You have nailed the second point too. I need to start churning out more content to stay pertinent to subscribers.

 

Nice article. I just can't believe there are people making sites that follows those rules in reverse.

I think for legit serious bloggers (or site owners in general) the worse thing to do is number 2: not posting at all. Nothings drives away visitors as seeing an outdated site.

 

Yeah, the worst thing to do is definitely not posting at all. Regardless of what type of site you're running.

Of course, I'm not exactly immune to making this mistake (a lot of the times when my sites have done poorly is because I was too sidetracked by other things and couldn't be bothered to add new content regularly), but at least I recognise when I'm not doing all I can and don't whine about it on admin forums later on.

You've seen more forums with rules that strict nowadays? Wow, that's just...

 

I have let a couple of blogs die because of innactivity. I was lucky enough that someone asked to buy one blog after a year and a half without any activity. I sold the articles I had and the guy who bought them posted them on his own site only to let his site die a couple of months ago.

 

That made for a good read, especially for a novice web designer such as I.

 

Thanks for the guide! Was great.

 

I completely agree about the "adsense sites" that repackage content and use bland effortless designs. I think Google should make more of an effort to shut these types of operations down by permanently blacklisting them from search. Everytime I come across one I immediately regret clicking the link to it however in some cases when you search for things like prescription medications these are the only links you get.

 

You could report them as spam, I'm pretty sure I saw an option to do that some time ago.

 

Great article! That was a good read!

 

Are you talking about those Google Ads that sometimes come up saying weird things like "Meet hot Asian girls!"?

 

10. Overly strict rules that go beyond what’s reasonable even for a professional forum

Number 10 is a huge issue for me. Especially with the fact that if you are going to DECLARE some rules and then on top of that suddenly state you have UNWRITTEN rules, but say that they are "common sense" rules that people should know is ridiculous. Then to make matters worse, you don't want people to come to have to say "put it in the rules otherwise we won't know."

I'm currently dealing with this issue on a forum that is very promising. I am not going to continue to help and be in this partnership unless they fully declare in writing what people are to expect. You start to take people out, you better be prepared to disclose the reasons why they are being deleted.

I've been a part of plenty of forums just as a member so I know what should be in writing. People need something tangible they can look at and follow.

The rules that this forum wants to leave out to "common sense" is insane because they think they will fall under the currently visible rules when in actuality they don't. Depending on what a forum is about and how the platform is going to work, work in conjunction with how many different subcategory probabilities you are going to have.

 

I guess a lot depends on what they are classing as "common sense" rules. Generally I find people don't read the rules anyway. If there is a click to agree during registration they just click and register with rules unread or unagreed to. It's a slippery slope and difficult to remedy at the best of times. I find dealing with each case on an individual basis allowing each enough rope to hang themselves if they wish is a better option to rules.

Out of curiosity what as some of the basic rules people have on their forums?

Great article by the way, a very informative read.

 

I believe most of them are to post original fresh content, no plagiarism, no spamming, minimum characters (This is becoming more common.) and that's just to mention a few. Some that I just visit have rules such as no links in the comments no matter what it is. I think that is a great one but my favorite forum that I visit didn't declare that in the written rules and now everyone is being penalized for it. That's not cool.

 

Even if I do that, Google cannot rely simply on users to report sites as spam. Most users either don't know or don't care enough to be bothered to do so.

 

10. Overly strict rules that go beyond what’s reasonable even for a professional forum

This is also one of my pet peeves. I belong to a few forums that have a laundry list of very specific rules to follow. That's not how web forums are supposed to be run. It really suffocates the creativity, spontaneity and expressions of the user base. I pretty much stop posting on those forums even though a lot of them have a lot of potential. I want the freedom to express myself in a manner that I see fit. Stop micromanaging everything to death.

 

This is really good. Both as an informative resource and for humor. I hate the sites that hyperlink every third word to an advertisement (and double for those that also pop up something when you mouse over the link). I am also completely guilty of number 2. When I post content, it works, when I don't, I ruin the little headway I get when I actually post. Things should turn around when I'm out of school and have a little free time again.

Also, what about all those game advertisements that are "for men only" and have nearly topless anime women on them. Civony/Evony started this. Fun stuff (if they games weren't so horrible and actually showed a tit or two it might work better).

And bad Captchas are a great point. Captcha is such an annoyance in general as a user, especially as a user who has no interest in making a bot or spamming or whatever.

 

I know what you mean about not posting at all and then just losing what you built up. Happens to me all the time.

Ah yeah, those Evony ads. I remember seeing a humorous list of those and how they got gradually less and less worksafe (as well as less relevant to the game/service itself):

http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2009/07/14/evolution-of-evony-video-game-ads/

It also reminds me of all the parodies other sites had:

http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/evony-banner-parodies-play-now-my-lord

Still, the DK Vine ads are the best ads. Why? Well refresh the page a bit...

http://www.dkvine.com/

They not only have an amusing Evony ad with Candy Kong* in place of the woman, but also stuff like:

* Picture can be seen past this link. Minor NSFW content.

Captchas are an outdated piece of crap that should probably just be removed from software altogether now. No one likes them, they don't block spam and they're just a bad idea in general.[/quote]