Recently, there has been a lot of discussion among leading webmasters about the level of manipulation and misleading stats being shown by certain websites. In 2007, a petition will be presented to congress to enact laws that will make websites responsible for publishing accurate numbers regarding their hits, visitors and forum “views”. The group is pushing for penalties that will include having deceptive websites de-listed from popular search engines or database deletions.
There are a number of respectable forums that helped establish this new medium. Many of these forums have been running since the late 90’s. I invite you to take a look at some prevalent forums within the boating community. Also, check out some of the auto sites that have a staggering number of members and a huge amount of activity/participation. (some have nearly 500,000 members and over 4 million posts!)
While looking at these forums, notice the number of “VIEWS” the threads are receiving. Some of the oldest & most popular threads… running for many years…rarely go over 100,000 views. This is true for most of the automotive forums as well, which have far more lurkers, readers and members than ANY boating website.
Why am I pointing this out...?
If you participate in forums showing “views” that that are “off the chart” …
in time, they may be off the net.
If legislation is passed, sites using “Script Multipliers” for "views" may be forced to delete their forum databases. If so, your posts... just went poof!
*****
GOOD LUCK finding threads with more than 100,000 views on any of the sites below. A few of the major sites have a couple of threads with over 100,000 views, but that's about it.
Note the number of members! If a forum only has a couple thousand members, but they've got a bunch of threads over 100,000 views and much, much higher... this is a red flag!
Boat Forums...
www.OffshoreOnly.com : 36,266 members
www.ScreamAndFly.com : 22,132 members
www.SpeedWake.com : 10,519 members
www.iboats.com : 77,958 members
www.FloridaSportsman.com : 62,019 members
www.Boat-Design.net : 14,838 members
www.ybw.com : 20,430 members
www.sailinganarchy.com : 10,232 members
There are MANY more, but here's a few car forums…
www.automotiveforums.com: 461,880 members
www.ford-trucks.com : 340,418 members
www.supercars.net 130,976 members
www.honda-tech.com : 191,547 members
www.corvetteforum.com 122,565 members
www.superhonda.com : 113,319 members
www.stangnet.com : 104,470 members
www.corral.net : 82,620 members
www.dodgetalk.com : 73,153 members
www.honda-acura.net : 58,237 members
www.chevytalk.com : 36,227 members
www.dodgeforums.com : 36,346 members
www.mustangforums.com : 40,042 members
www.toyotaownersclub.com : 28,900 members
www.nsxprime.com : 11,711 members
www.ferrarichat.com : 30,307 members
www.mp3car.com ; 40,972 members
www.benzworld.org : 59,514 members
www.6speedonline.com : 47,435 members