traffic?

[eventus]

Does it seem to anybody else that webmasterworld is dying slowly?

It used to be that this was a busy and active board with lots of member activity.

But looking at some of the forums it is days and weeks between postings?

If anyone recalls JimWorld from the early days the same thing happened

So where'd everyone go?

[tigger]

probably like most - heads down and working and spending less time on forums

[StoutFiles]

The same topics over and over:

-Google updated their algorithm, lost all my traffic
-AdSense revenue is dropping
-Question by a new user that has been answered a thousand times
-Question that is too complicated to accurately answer on a forum without wasting a lot of time

But yeah, I'd say the majority of people are tired of wasting time answering questions for people who sign up just to ask a question and then leave. This site has become more of a hangout for older webmasters then a solid question/answer forum. It appears as if there are only ~50 solid members.

[robzilla]

For what it's worth, Compete and Quantcast show pretty massive drops. Sites like StackOverflow are probably nibbling away at WebmasterWorld's share of search traffic. I certainly end up here less frequently via search than I used to.

[mromero]

My theory is that many folks are aware that snoops are listening very carefully to the discussions taking place here and are wary of being pandalised.

Maybe time to lock down the webmaster supporters forum tighter than a drum and require full I.D. and legal declaration under penalty of perjury that you are not working for or associated in any way with the search engines.....

[johnhh]

This site has become more of a hangout for older webmasters

As the internet gets older people will get older, my friend and forum member theBear is enjoying himself away from the web world in a quiet location - I myself who started over 12 years ago will also take that route !

What is good is that new people come along, younger, raised in an internet generation, and sometimes cleverer - some will ask the same old questions but they will all have an opinion. some are taking business risks some not.

It's up to the reader to decide which opinions are possibly correct and which may be mis-information.

<edit>forums are not only for taking but for giving back as well</edit>

[koan]

I'd say the majority of people are tired of wasting time answering questions for people who sign up just to ask a question and then leave.

When it happens, I do check the user's number of posts and date of registration before committing to a reply. I also don't like new users who are just here to take and then run along, expecting others to work for them or show them the way to riches. But I have to say this forum doesn't seem to attract too many of those, compared to other places.

[lucy24]

Comment from a brand spankin new member:

What you're not seeing is all the newbie questions that don't have to be asked all over again because we did find the answers. I landed here because when I started looking at my raw logs and getting curious about the non-human activity, the answers most often came from here. There are lots of other forums, but this seemed to be the one where people are most likely to know what they were talking about. Unfortunately that does mean having to answer questions from people who know less than you do.

On the "for what it's worth" side: For years and years I've been a moderator on a small forum Out There Somewhere. In the past couple of years traffic has dropped from needing several moderators stopping by several times a day, to times when I've gone a week between visits and found only a dozen new posts. Apparently people are wandering off to places like Facebook that I refuse to set foot in. (When you get a LinkedIn invite from your 80-year-old father, you know you're seriously out of step. Sigh.)

:: wandering off to figure out how to Search for pre-existing but reasonably recent discussion on relative merits of counting on fingers vs. constructing a RegEx so I don't have to annoy anyone by asking the same question all over again ::

[Shaddows]

The Google forum is pretty busy atm. Foo too.

The fact is, there is now a large repository of information on these boards - the same questions do not need to be asked again and again.

Social Media is surely taking a chunk of would-be members too. Just join a group. In addition, the "normalisation" of internet use means there are more places to meet like-minded people, and more categories of "like-mindedness" over which people can meet.

In short, competition (as resource and as social tool) has vastly increased, and the requirement to actively participate has decreased. But it's still Best in Class.

[incrediBILL]

Slow death? It's 7:45AM PST and according to what I can see there's been more than 40 threads updated with 130 posts and we're just getting started.

It that's what you call death, I couldn't keep up if it was any healthier.

[g1smd]

Sites like StackOverflow are probably nibbling away at WebmasterWorld's share of search traffic.

I just reviewed about 40 answers at stackoverflow discussing redirects and rewrites and related topics. Not one of the solutions given was 100% correct, and most contained serious syntax errors and/or code that was seriously inefficient. If the rest of the solutions on that site, for CSS and PHP and other topics are of similar quality, then there's a heck of a lot of sites running on very poor code.

[tangor]

I also see things as "ebbs and flows"... sometimes the tide is in (many messages/much activity) and sometimes the tide is out (off working/sleeping/burned out). Heck, my own participation is iffy... though I read all the new posts (last 100) each day. As for posting... some weeks I do, other weeks I don't. But even with Facebook et al sucking up all the bodies out there, Webmasterworld is doing okay... better than okay.

[Demaestro]

When I was a n00b this site was what made me look like a pro.

Now that I am a pro this site is what I use to augment my knowledge and pay the knowledge I have received forward to the new n00bs.

lucy24, don't worry about posting a question that has already been answered. Searching this site isn't always the easiest thing. You can't sort results by date of last post or thread date so it is hard to find stuff even when you have the right search terms.

WebmasterWorld is a great community to be a part of, I will be a member 4 life. (I know that may sadden some, but I love you all ;)~ )

[Brett_Tabke]

> dyning

(grin). Since Panda - we've seen a major increase in posting and traffic. Last week was the highest posting week and traffic week in a year.

> patterns

Yes, our traffic pattern has change remarkably over the last two years. Google is surfacing moldy old content instead of minty fresh content here, which has lead to a major bounce rate increase. There is alot more to say here, but lets leave it at that.

[Intersite]

I think the problem with webmaster world is it is too exclusive! You need to have your known hosted email address to register as a member, while this might throw off the spammers I image that Webmaster world is losing thousands of legitimate members a years because of this. 2 other points are the forum code and design is too simple and there are forums that people may only access if they subscribe. Something to think about.

[bakedjake]

So where'd everyone go?

Some of us are just busy. Occam's Razor.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Does it seem to anybody else that webmasterworld is dying slowly?

Actually I came in here to ask the same question and found this thread. Traffic in here has dropped considerably. I used to spend an hour or two a day getting involved in threads now it's probably less than an hour or two a week.

You only have to look at the frequency, date and times in the last message column [webmasterworld.com...] to see how things have changed. For example the web hosting forum has only had 12 threads added this year - less than one a week! The supporters forum, which used to be incredibly busy has only seen eight threads being started in the last week.

I have learned so much in here and I trust the information I get from most of the regular contributors implicitly. I worry about losing this. It would be shame if this trend continued and I do think something needs to be done about it. Perhaps we should have a discussion about it in the members forum because the cosmetic changes that were done last year appear to have had no beneficial effect.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

One day later and no further responses - this to me is another sign of problems. Is it not normally the case that when a thread like this is started very many people want to comment?

[engine]

I think that quality is more important than quantity, and it's easier to see the quality without so much of the spammy noise.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Yes but I am finding that I cannot decide what forum to put a new topic in because of the lack of activity. If no one has visited a forum for a week or two there is little likelihood of getting a timely response.

[engine]

If everyone does that, you'll never get an answer. ;)

Post it where you think it's most appropriate. You can always ping a mod if you're not sure where to post the message.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

But this is not about not being sure where to post a message. I have been a regular in here for several years and that is the least of my problems. It's about the likelihood of getting a response.

I must admit that I have started using other forums for certain discussions and that cannot be a good sign for WW.

[adamxcl]

Posts and traffic may be down but the noise is down too. So the quality remains very high. I tend to go in spurts. Spend a lot of time here for a while and then get involved with big projects for a month or two. In my case, I am doing more with mobile apps and mobile aspects of my websites. That is one area I've been surprised that there isn't as much talk about. So my searches lead me to other places more often. Altering my web data to mobile has quickly jumped to 50% of my business in only a year.

But I keep coming here for the usual stuff. It's echoed in Pubcon actually. It's number one event on my list and I keep going but it's becoming less relevant to me as there hasn't been too much about mobile websites or changing web stuff for on-the-go users. Not that I know if a whole track could be filled with that or not. HTML5, web apps, etc are hard to find anything on as far as events go. Yeah, social is great but it just doesn't make me any money for the time spent.

[HelenDev]

Does it seem to anybody else that webmasterworld is dying slowly?

I was wondering the very same thing, and then came across this thread.

heads down and working and spending less time on forums

This is exactly why I've been away, and coming back has felt like a bit of a shock. Perhaps it is that other social media has in part replaced the community we have (or had) here. WW has always felt to me like more than just a place to find technical information. We were ahead of our time in that respect I think.

I know that it's probably people like me who are part of the problem, so I certainly haven't come here to point fingers, just sharing my thoughts.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Actually I am quite sad to see this happening. I have taken so much from this forum. I would not like to see it disappear but it seems that the situation is getting worse. Even the supporters forum goes two or three days on occasion without any activity.

[PowerhouseSEO]

wELL I AM NEW HERE.iVE BEEN IN SEO FOR 2 YEARS.tO be honest, ive never even heard of this forum.Theres not a lot of advertising going on, thats for sure.Seems to me, that more & more people are advancing toward your xrumer, and blackhat seo forums.
Personally, i recently started a forum, i would like to see more people headed toward a whitehat approach, rather than a blackhat approach.
Im one of the more dedicated individuals.

[edited by: tedster at 3:49 am (utc) on Aug 27, 2011]