Remove Many Categories ;)

There are many categories on the forum that are just distracting. They cause users to waste a lot of time digging through ancient posts instead of finding the categories they're looking for.

Traffic is down, so let's convert it to the categories we want:
- Truly active subforums that are valuable
- Journeys
- Marketplace

A few of my picks should be removed, but I personally think we should revive BHW, otherwise it will die completely.

- Marketplace: I think creating so many categories made sense, but it's a strategic mistake that will cost sellers an exodus. What good is it if sellers have their own category, if no one visits them?
- Categories need to be rethought. Among all this, one of the most valuable categories, "MyJourneys," is buried somewhere.
- Making Money is also buried, and that's something that interests newcomers, not SEO technicalities.

Some of my picks:
https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/torrents.75/ -> Torrents (nearly dead, only som invitations to torrent programs, talking about it is negative impact for forum SEO)
https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/voice-search.280/ - Voice Search (it's 2026, not 2018 and forum is nearly dead)
https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/myspace.87/ - MySpace (still active, but not attractive for users and new gen any more)
https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/weibo.216/ - Weibo (we aim to get USA members to forum, or maybe Chinese members? Because normal people cannot do Weibo or WeChat without chinese gov id)
https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/tumblr.217/ - Tumbrl (prehistory)

What should you do with such categories?
Create an Archives category and place prehistory there.

I know it's difficult to make fundamental changes, because they've proven effective over the years.

However, you're probably aware of what's happening.

The forum is fighting AI spam, but in addition to fighting AI spam, we need to attract users. The current structure isn't attractive to many young people.

https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/tumblr.217/ - Tumbrl (prehistory)

You can't imagine how good of a traffic source Tumblr actually is brother.

But I agree on Torrents, Voice, they seem dead, others for some reason still have some posts

SpawneR said:

https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/tumblr.217/ - Tumbrl (prehistory)

You can't imagine how good of a traffic source Tumblr actually is brother.

But I agree on Torrents, Voice, they seem dead, others for some reason still have some posts

Click to expand...

I know some have posts, but we need to re-think if posts is the only reason why they should have category and not just in general Social Media.
For years, the main rule was simple, topic have 50 threads.
But... maybe the categories tree should reflect the audience we want to get and keep on BHW, not number of threads made in the past

We have also Affiliate Programs, CPA, Pay Per Click, Pay Per View, Pay per Install. All of them can be merged without the harm for users.

One thing that is running through my mind is the handling of the old sales threads.

All of them got deleted, but they did appear in Google and brought in traffic.

Now they look like this:





It's basically all the sales threads that got expired.... If you look at when the expired BST change was implemented and when the sales/traffic started to drop, then there might be some correlations.

Lukmat said:

https://www.blackhatworld.com/forums/torrents.75/ -> Torrents (nearly dead, only som invitations to torrent programs, talking about it is negative impact for forum SEO)

Click to expand...

Torrents are still rocking. You can find tons of info, media and more in them.

i think it's dead as people don't really know how to use to them to market something.

You can download tons of videos/ebooks, and find inspiration/knowledge to create more content in social media or in your own ranked site

I would keep Torrents and Tumblr, those are still doing well.

INCC said:

One thing that is running through my mind is the handling of the old sales threads.

All of them got deleted, but they did appear in Google and brought in traffic.

Now they look like this:

View attachment 520826



It's basically all the sales threads that got expired.... If you look at when the expired BST change was implemented and when the sales/traffic started to drop, then there might be some correlations.

Click to expand...

That sucks big time.

Now maybe bhw can upsell bst owners with a £9.99 / Year "Keep your bst in Google Search even when your bst expires!"

Since the replies have died down, I'm going to go ahead and close this.

The BHW team regularly brings up and discusses the different forums, MP categories and overall forum structure. It's always interesting to hear what you guys think, so thank you @Lukmat for the thread! It gives us something to refer back to.

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