Something I don't quite get...

C

chaumi

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This is tying in with some work on the forum enhancement project.

So, I've noticed that the forum appears to be getting a fairly big volume of what I'll call 'branded searches' in search engines.

That's to say, there's some evidence that searchers are typing in terms like 'Talkinghorses', 'Talking Horses Forum', 'Talking Horses racing forum' etc etc

This, of course, implies that they already know of TalkingHorses as a horse racing forum (as opposed to those who might search plain 'horse racing forum' and get a list of options).


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But it doesn't quite make sense to me. I could be wrong, but the reported volume doesn't seem right. So, I'm trying to understand why this is.


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I'm thinking, one (or a partial) answer could be in how we (the members) navigate to the site.

For me, for example, I either get a mail because there's a new entry on a subscribed thread and click on the link in the mail. Or I have a shortcut on my laptop and click on that. Or I just start typing 'talk' in the URL bar and the browser 'knows' what I'm going to type next and auto-populates it.

An alternative could be, I type 'talkinghorses' in the search bar, it'll bring up a list of results and obviously (in most cases) the TH link will be the first link available. Just click on it.

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So, the question is 'does anyone use that last-named method of navigation?' (which might then go some way to explaining the volume of search queries for those type branded terms).

Or, I guess, does anyone else have other ways of getting to the site that might be interesting/useful for other members?
 
I get it from the Tapatalk app these days, if I do it from a desktop then I usually just type talking horses in and it comes automatically.

while you’re here - what’s with all the adverts now? I can’t open a thread up without having to watch an advert before I can see it these days !


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trudij said:
while you’re here - what’s with all the adverts now? I can’t open a thread up without having to watch an advert before I can see it these days !
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Ah I'm not a moderator, just working on some background stuff that might help with future improvements. Not sure what the 'advert showing' rules are.

But I don't get adverts. Well, certainly nothing that I'd question as excessive. Is it because I'm permanently logged in? Or maybe your Tapatalk (I don't know what that is, but can make an educated guess that'll likely be right) is playing a part.

Or maybe I've just gone 'ad blind'. It's (or used to be) a known phenomenon in some website circles.

Can you screenshot a couple of the adverts you get and I might be able to work out why you're seeing them. If you can't attach them here, you can try a pm or just pm me and I'll give you an email address to send them to.
 
chaumi said:
Ah I'm not a moderator, just working on some background stuff that might help with future improvements. Not sure what the 'advert showing' rules are.

But I don't get adverts. Well, certainly nothing that I'd question as excessive. Is it because I'm permanently logged in? Or maybe your Tapatalk (I don't know what that is, but can make an educated guess that'll likely be right) is playing a part.

Or maybe I've just gone 'ad blind'. It's (or used to be) a known phenomenon in some website circles.

Can you screenshot a couple of the adverts you get and I might be able to work out why you're seeing them. If you can't attach them here, you can try a pm or just pm me and I'll give you an email address to send them to.
Click to expand...

Thanks - I’m thinking it’s a Tapatalk thing to try and “encourage” people to sign up and pay rather than access it for free. It’s genuinely only been noticeable since the new people took over running things, hence me thinking they could have signed up for sponsorship or something along those lines. They did mention trying to use the site to make some money for Col’s family ( hence my thinking)

It’s sodding annoying though!! [emoji1787]


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Yeah it's probably Tapatalk-related. It would be extremely surprising if someone activated some form of advertising on the forum that wasn't there when Colin was running it. That seems very likely a coincidence that you noted it first around the changeover time.


That's not to say that some advertising won't ever be visible on the forum. A fair %age of the internet runs on advertising. That's just internet life. I think I remember (maybe many years ago now) some discussion from Colin about bookie ads showing on threads - memory very hazy on that now but it might have been only to unregistered users.

Colin wouldn't have been trying to make a pile of bucks out of that, I think he did it (ran the forum) for love - but it costs money to run and maintain a site/forum, so clearly he'd have been taking a sensible approach to at least try ways to cover the costs.

If advertising is introduced here in any form, I'd be 100% confident it would be done sensibly and with a focus on avoiding negative impact on members.
 
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OK, so Luke and Simmo...you mean you go to Google (or elsewhere), type in 'talkinghorses' as a search, and then click on the result when it comes up, right?
 
After the computer powers up I dbl click the google icon on the bar at the bottom of my screen. This brings up a page which I can click to "search Google or type a URL"

In addition to this I have a number of shortcuts listed for me to double click eg Talking Horses, BBC News, AOL, Sporting Life, Facebook

If I want to access TH I just double click & go into the site to read. I rarely log in to TH (no need, I can see everything I need to withouut logging in). The only time I log in is when I want to comment or post a "Thanks".
 
99% of the time I access the forum via my laptop and the site is saved on my favourites bar.

I'm not into mobile phones and have really only just started using Orchidette's old iphone in the last six months or so and I struggle with my eyesight anyway for reading so only really try and get in here using it if I happen to be killing time over a cup of tea somewhere out and about.

I'm not bothered with adds when using the laptop.
 
I access through a shortcut and am always logged in except on odd occasions after an update.
I don't see any ads using MS Edge.
 
The only thing stopping me blaming Tapatalk in its entirety is the other places I go don’t bombard me with adverts like here does. All just seems a bit of a coincidence from when they first started - though of course coincidences do happen…


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When I joined,I think,I added it to my homepage and just presses "T" and I'm usually always logged in so I get it straight away.
And no adverts.
 
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