Which one do you think is harder? Rebuilding a dead forum that once had 50-60 active members, thats dwindled down to ~15 on good days. Or simply starting a whole new forum?


I'm working on a project from a while ago, that i left for a bigger one. When i left the site was booming, doing good had alot of regulars, and new registrations. Then I didn't have enough time to devote to it any more, for my larger site, and left my friend to run it. Needless to say after months of neglect, no updates/additions members slowly started fading away into eSpace never to be seen or heard from again.

So i took the site back over last month. First thing was first on building the Google key words back to #1. After fixing the vBSEO settings, and getting a few automotive related link exchanges, I've already got it back to first page, 3-4th result.

I sent a mass email out to the members using the commbull hack, but it was a failure. Maybe 3-5 members returned to see what was going on, and haven't been back since.

Next I added a couple forum features, and am still working on more and finishing some others such as the arcade, photoplog gallery and a automotive news blog to help bring in more traffic. So far traffic is coming but no new registrations yet. Hopefully those start coming back soon.

And now i've resorted to making a few "alias" accounts for myself to post different things under to give a more lviely feel to the forums, This seems to be stimulating the best growth so far.

Anyone have any other recommendations? I'd love to hear more ideas.

Thakns

I would say it depends on the content of the dead forum.

I think a forum with a few post and threads looks more inviting then a brand new forum anyday.

If the old sites content is crap and you end up deleting or hiding it, then I would say a new forum is best.

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I think a dead forum would be harder to bring back. No one likes to see no people on at all and no posts happening.
A new forum would be easier. People are excited about it, and usually tend to stick around for a good bit to give it a go and such. And usually the members that are theere the longest get a good rep, and become a leader of the forum... and in most forums that I am on, they love to be a mod.

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Owner of www.bleepd.com

I agree with Brandon.

I would rather try and revive a dead forum. At least you have the potential of having the old members come back with a newsletter. You would at least have the potential members there. Dead forums are usually because of lack of an admin keeping fresh content on the site and keeping it up to date.

Give it a couple months and if it doesn't happen, well you have the knowledge of what to do & what not to do. Then go out and start another one.

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My Updated Blog

I think a new forum would be a better draw for members. People do get excited about creating their own community. Recruiting recognized members from other sites as moderators and applying fresh and clean information can give you a great kick off over patching up a wounded forum.

An old forum has the following benefit over a new forum:

Content

Traffic

Search Engine Rankings

Old member email database

I feel the above things are more than enough to get a forum back on the ground, provided you are willing to work hard on it and improve its image. Don’t bother yourself too much with getting old members back, if they come back then good, else just concentrate on expanding the user base. Also I feel paid posting should work well in your forum, provided you are willing to spend enough money for a few hundred posts.

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If the new forum would have the same topics then I would keep to the old one and just send out a mass email to your inactive members to start taking part again. Maybe have some sort of competition so that they are more encouraged to take part again.

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