Critique: www.boatinghowto.com

I followed the suggested list and would like a critique please.

Boating How To's | Boating | Boat Repair - BoatingHowTo.com

thank you

Hi Alaska_av8r,

When I clicked the "Archive" link in the footer, I received the following error:

Index of /sitemap

• Parent Directory

Apache/2.2.21 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.21 OpenSSL/0.9.8e-fips-rhel5 mod_auth_passthrough/2.1 mod_bwlimited/1.4 FrontPage/5.0.2.2635 mod_fcgid/2.3.5 Sun-ONE-ASP/4.0.3 Server at www.boatinghowto.com Port 80

Thank you Marvin, I have never even clicked that link but obviously I messed it up somehow, now I need to figure out where to point it.

Okay turned off the archive as per the post here and that fixed that issue.

For a brand new forum, you simply have too many forums. I would suggest re-thinking the approach and start small and board. As the post counts necessitate it, branch down into sub forums. From the looks of it, you can simply make the categories 1 big forum and hide the subforums for now or something like that. The forum will look fuller instead of dead like it does now which encourages member sign ups.

I would also suggest putting your technical forums up top and your community forums at the bottom. When visiting a technical 'how to' site, i don't care about the community.... i'm there to fix something and that should be your targetting traffic. If they stay, THEN they can join in on the community stuff.

I'd also suggest working on the theme. The logo/etc simply doesn't match the default vb theme.

Thanks Brian, I will look at the organization and number of forums again.

I am not understanding what exactly you mean about the logo not matching the default vb theme. Are you talking about the color? or how?

Yeah, the purple doesn't really go with the blue. I don't know... don't take my word for it, i'm slightly color blind. heh

Ya know I never noticed that it had that much purple in it, maybe I need new glasses. Getting old sucks.