Nifty-Stuff Forum - Site Name & URL

[Nifty]

Back in late 2004 when I started this forum I never expected it o grow as well as it has. 9 years ago I was a N00BIE when it came to running forums. Now that I've got some experience behind me (and also hindsight is 20/20) I've realized that I shouldn't have created the forum on top of my hobby site and the printer forum should have been given a home of its own and not be shackled to the diversity of topics on Nifty-Stuff.com.

I've been in long discussions with a few of my buddies who run really large forums and they are all suggesting that I put the printer forum on it's own domain. The key reason is the SEO (Search Engine Optimization) benefits.

As it stands right now Google, Yahoo, BING, etc. all see the domain Nifty-Stuff.com as a hodge-podge of topics and information. They have a tricky time determining which category to put the site. Chickens? Gardening? Printers? LEDs? Technology? etc? That means that we would tend to have less credibility in the search terms that are related to printers since there is so much other "noise" with the stuff on the blog.

The plan is to move the forum to a "printer" domain name that is only about printers. This will help distinguish the site and make it more appealing to search engines and site visitors. The timing is also absolutely perfect with the conversion of the forum software and URL redirects.

Right now the plan is to go with www.PrinterKnowledge.com. It isn't the shortest domain name, but I feel that it represents the tonality and demeanor we've created here over the past 9 years.

While we're about 97.19% sure that we're going with that URL, we are open to your thoughts and feedback. With that said, please do be prepared if one day you visit www.Nifty-Stuff.com/forum and you're redirected instantly to www.PrinterKnowledge.com/forum

 

[ThrillaMozilla]

Why not .org? I think there are practical differences between .com and .org, but I don't know what.

 

[websnail]

In all fairness I think the name isn't so important as the sites reputation or indeed providing the tools so folks can share stuff easily.

On that last bit, I'm assuming you're looking at adding in the social media buttons or that the forum allows for that already (going off topic... Oops!).

Updating to something relevant is going to be important but I'd be looking outside just the name and forum and considering additional resource generation such as guest articles on a wordpress (or similar) platform. Once you're done on the forum move side of things I'd ask for a list of members "favourites" with a view to asking the thread author(s) to consolidate tips, expertise, etc.. into articles that consolidate information into something more digestible.

Going that route would, I suspect, improve the SEO considerably more than just a name change but I'm no SEO expert and frankly I think anyone who calls themselves one, isn't anyway (if you get my meaning ).


Erk... probably off topic in the end but, well... you get where I'm coming from...

 

[Nifty]

Great points and I agree that the name, colors, etc. are almost infinitely less important that the members and tone of the community and their ability to share ideas, pictures, etc.

Yes, the new system has excellent social media sharing tools!

Guest articles: You are SPOT ON... kinda scary how you're reading my mind right now! On my other site www.BackYardChickens.com we have a VERY popular "Learning Center" made up almost entirely of member created pages: http://www.backyardchickens.com/atype/1/Learning_Center

I'd LOVE to do something very similar to that here! We have a lot of really brilliant members and I'd love to see information pulled from their brains and added / consolidated into a very well organized printer learning center full of experiments, how-to's, etc.