hello, just created my new forum - critique please

[ploph1x]

Hello everyone,

Let me know what you do think about my new site:
IDANTECH Forums

[ploph1x]

hi there?

[A.Chakery]

Hello,

Sorry I am super busy these days so I really don't have enough time to answer to critiques,

I reviewed your website, here is my suggestions :

• ok lest start with your welcome message, try to remove it in threads and forums , or at least try to make it smaller , but to be honest if it was my own website I wouldn't use it because 1.Its making your website ugly / 2.you are adding useless content before H1 tag
• Always Try to keep the pages clean for guests by removing the unnecessary contents using the conditional tags. always keep in mind that the most important pages of your website are Threads. Don't enable replies for guests or at least try to disable quick reply for them... some example of unnecessary contents are : Whats going on box in homepage / Posting Rules in forums and threads/ tag box in threads / FAQ and Calendar in navbar .....
• The most important things for Google is your website's content so please try to post unique and useful content in your website and keep it updated.
• Try to speedup your website by using a CDN service like MaxCDN.com
• Another great plugin for optimizing your website is vboptimise , there is two versions Lite and Commercial, I am using both (on my forums) and both are great.
• Great work! your pages are almost validated .. try to correct these errors too : [Invalid] Markup Validation of http://www.idantech.com/google-adsense-7/some-great-google-adsense-success-stories-85/ - W3C Markup Validator
• Try to submit your website to DMOZ.org (its great for gaining some PageRank.
• And always try to improve your website's performance, you can check it here : WebPagetest - Website Performance and Optimization Test

Best Regards,
Ali.

[ploph1x]

Hi,

First of all, thank you!

- I did remove the welcome message
- I will consider the conditionals, do you have some examples of code for me? did you have a similar website that use it to show me?
- I am keeping posting unique content
- I am already using maxcdn
- I am already using vboptimise
- My pages are validated I don't know why you are seeing they are not
- I did submit to dmoz.org some months ago - they didn't accept me
- what do you think about the current performance of the site?
- I have added ShareThis button bar - what do you think about that?


Best Regards,

[A.Chakery]

Its my pleasure ,

well as I said your site is fully validated but there is only one error in your thread which is about a javascript , I was pointing to it.

And as an example for using Conditional tags , you can try to visit my website(Vet Arena) as guest then as a member, you will see a huge difference between these two...

anyways, here is an example of ONLY MEMBER and ONLY GUEST conditional tags :

<vb:if condition="$show['member']">CONTENT</vb:if> 

You can replace the "CONTENT" phrase with any content you want... for example the posting rules etc.

About the Share This button :
well it really depends on you but as a Website/Forum owner I wouldn't do it cause addthis or any similar code (even the original facebook/twitter/Plus1 codes) includes large JS files that slow the page load of your website .. BUT I create a code using the <iframe> method ... and I suggest you to use my method for guests and then try to implant the addthis or any similar item for members ...

here is my article on facebook like button :

How To create a NON-JS Facebook like button in showthread? (XHTML validated)

but dont forget to disable the builtin facebook like button of vbulletin ..

About your performance :
WebPagetest Test Details - Dulles : www.ida...rmance-noatime-64/ - 08/11/12 14:28:23

as you see there is too many files being loaded on every page load, Personally with the help of Marvin (one of the nicest guys I have ever seen) I leveraged the loading of JS files in my vb usingthe conditional codes .. you should test it your self ..

try to play with the conditional tag that I gave you above, try to remove unnecessary parts like signatures / avatars / and you can even remove some JS files (please note that removing the JS files is not an easy task and it should be done with so much testings)

[ploph1x]

Which code did you use to remove the member URL for guests and allow it for members?

[A.Chakery]

Here is an example :

<vb:if condition="$show['member']">
Content for members
<vb:else />
Content for guests
</vb:if> 

Regards,
Ali.

[ploph1x]

I didn't success to implement it
what should I write in content for guests / content for members

[A.Chakery]

Well I don't have the actual codes of vb4 ...

you should try to edit postbit or postbit_legacy template ...

you should replace the "Content for members" with the linked user name and replace the "Content for guests" with the un-linked username variable.

Regards,
Ali.