[Review] Hack Mix

[Wario]

1. Title - Hack Mix Forum
2. URL - https://hackmix.altervista.org
3. Category - Game hacking, programming
4. Site Type - Forum (MyBB)
5. Description - Forum that share game hacks.

The empty categories are just added to increase the forum topics.
It has not been refreshed for 3 years cause of personal reasons.
Now I'm just came back to restart to manage it upgrading everything but I've realized how forums in general are declining. And it's so sad cause I love forums.
I'm here to know if I have hopes to make it a nice forum as it was, or better.
I'm aware that arguments are diffused to many other sites now, but I was in Italy one of the first to talk about these topics.
In the past I got visitors without doing nothing, but now it is the end: only bots visits my forum, from 40 to 200 bots continously online.

Please let me know how to forward to improve it. Thanks 

[batman]

Why would you loose hope? Have faith first.

And I can see that your forum isn't empty and has plenty of posts. But still there are some sub-forums which are empty so try to fill them. I don't speak Italian but all I can see that posts are from Admin. Nobody wants to join a forum just to talk to its admin. User always wants to talk to people where they can get many sets of opinion so that's why people join any forum.

See your forum through the eyes of your audience. It will be my first piece of advice to you. Check other forums in your niche and compare it to yours, see what your forum is missing. Try to fix these things first and then we shall talk about its promotion.

[brian]

In your niche for you to survive you have to think something out of the box. Like giving away game's secret code or cheats etc. It a very hard niche. And plenty of forums are already there and so many have tried & failed.

As 'Batman' said see your forum through your audience's eyes. And I am also seeing that your regular day to day activity isn't much. Get some members and start making conversations that will trigger more talks. If you can't get members right away then create some fake accounts and start talking to yourself. It will look like that your forum is active.

[Wario]

Thank you for the tips I'll work on it.

I have 3 questions:

• A second-level domain will decrease google rank? I know basically a second domain is better, but since the forum is born on a third level if I switch it can cause confusion to google?
  
• Actually, is the forum SEO part built correctly?
  
• Setting up a WordPress blog with articles based on tutorials and how-to will add importance to the site/better google rank = more forum activity?
  

[batman]

The only thing I find odd is that is your forum's domain is like xyz.abc.com

It has to be xyz.com or abc.com or xycabc.com

So far I didn't see any wrong or faulty SEO issues.

And coming to blogs. You can add a blog and insert articles in it. Yeah it will get ranked and bring traffic. But that doesn't mean that it will bring engagement to your forum. You can put a link of your forum in your blog and it can bring a little referral traffic but that's it. Forum's are a different kind of animal in terms of ranking.

[Wario]

But if I purchase a domain the rank will start from zero? I'll lose every position on SE?
Also, to benefit of blog traffic it is better to put it as home or forum can remain the home?

[brian]

Why will you loose your rankings for choosing a different domain? You just have to create proper 301 redirects for all the pages that are ranking and the most important pages. People do this all the time. Just you have to keep this domain registered to your name for a year or so.

And I didn't understand what are trying to say here by "to benefit of blog traffic it is better to put it as home or forum can remain the home? ".

[Wario]

To benefit of blog efficacy to get traffic from search engines, the blog must be the Home of the site, or a subfolder?
Example: it can go to hackmix.......org/blog or you recommend to put it in hackmix......org/ ?

[motionz]

You are using mybb right?!!

Just make your forum homepage such as xyz.com and then put your blog in a sub-folder such as xyz.com/blog. Forums are hard to rank so if its remain in the homepage then it will be atleast easily accessible and get visits. But blog doesn't need much effort to get ranked so you can put it anywhere you like. But don't put in a sub-domain such as blog.xyz.com, in that case of a sub-domain they are treated by the search engine like separate domains so you have to do all the SEO for it from the scratch. I hope it helps you.

[brian]

To benefit of blog efficacy to get traffic from search engines, the blog must be the Home of the site, or a subfolder?
Example: it can go to hackmix.......org/blog or you recommend to put it in hackmix......org/ ?

Admin pretty much nailed it. I hope your query is being answered??