NC 4x4 club forums?

Rox&Mud

Rox&Mud

CTB
Joined
Nov 3, 2006
Location
Raleigh
I was curious if the NC4X4 club forum section has had a negative impact on any clubs stand alone web sites? Things such as decreased site traffic or internet searches for your various clubs bringing up NC4x4 rather than your site and the like.

Again, just curious.
 
The clubs that are here has asked for the sections as can any club who wants one. For some clubs its just an added way to reach their members.

CTB is not a very web oriented club so that sections helps its online members stay in touch.

CNC has an email list for members but they post announcements here etc..

Some clubs sections are private so they can't be seen without the club moderator approving the members and them logging in. (not search-able via google etc)

Did you have something in mind?
 
I was just wondering what impact, negative or positive, having a smaller organization listed on a higher volume site might do to the organization's primary web site? I think the positive attributes are apparent but I was, as I said, just curious if there could be any negative aspects. I didn't have anything specifically in mind, just thinking, mostly wondering, about how the web works.
 
I spoke with the president of NC Krawlers about this very thing. In my opinion, having your club info listed in this fashion on this site will do nothing but bring more traffic to your site. If someone googles "NC 4wd clubs" it's not going to show all of the clubs in NC. However, if our little sticky happens to pop up on that google search, there you have a list of all major clubs in NC and the searcher will follow the links to the club websites, thus generating more traffic. If a person searches for a specific club name then this list may also pop up but I don't anticipate it taking away from web traffic for that site.

Notice that searching for NC 4WD Clubs already shows this thread which has a link to the sticky. The sticky itself isn't showing up yet. Likewise searching for a specific club name such as Carolina Full Size Jeep Club does not even show the sticky.

http://www.google.com/search?q=nc+4...s=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...+size+jeep+club&aq=f&aqi=g1&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=
 
I think it has a lot to do with how much information is on the club's website and how often it's updated. Google pays a lot of attention to NC4x4, but it's also going for accuracy. So if you search for "Carolina Trailblazers", it returns the CTB website as the first thing. There are some NC4x4 links further down the page, though.

With guys like the Trail Jammers or Rock Corps, the NC4x4 stuff ranks higher.

But for the clubs that opt to have their own section, there's also the question of how you use it. You could have a public area where you have a FAQ about the club, how to become a member, etc. That's where you talk about an upcoming ride or post photos from the last one. But then you could also have a private section to discuss member business. Or maybe request to have the link to your club's main website added to the forum description, but keep the forum private.

So it's not necessarily an either/or.
 
So it looks like the answer to my question is that if you have a lower volume site and were to have a forum, or similar, on a higher volume site it could essentially take precedence in regards to internet searches over the actual organization site.
 
I said the "NC4x4 stuff ranks higher", I meant relatively. I wasn't clear about it. "Trail Jammers" actually returns a whole bunch of Edge performance stuff before it shows their Facebook page at about #6. Searching for "NC Trail Jammers" puts their facebook at #1, with NC4x4 at #2 and #3. With the Trailblazers, NC4x4 barely made the first page.

So, I think "it depends." Google page rank is a funny thing, and plenty of people have tried to find the secrets to moving farther up the chart.
 
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