Clann Alba Forums Blog

The Clann Alba Forums have now been on a KnownHost VPS for a bit over a week.  Forum pages are now loading even faster than ever, since we’ve already doubled the guaranteed RAM on the VPS.

987 threads (+10) - 3,436 posts (+42) - 52 members (+1)

Google shows a total of 2,360 indexed pages (-390) - 1,599 inbound links (+89) and a search on Clann Alba brings the forum in at numbers 1 and 2, with a link to the forum at number 4 out of 1,300,000 results.

Yahoo shows a total of 6,750 indexed pages (+150) - 4,420 inbound links (+200) and a search on Clann Alba brought some interesting results.  The forum occupies number 1, whilst this blog now occupies number 2.  There are now two Add to Google links at numbers 9 and 10 of 66,200 results.

AltaVista shows a total of 7,070 indexed pages (+270) - 4,470 inbound links (+200) and a search on Clann Alba brings the forum in at number 1, this blog at number 2, Add to Google links at numbers 7 and 8 and a link to the forum at number 10 of 66,300 results.

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The big news for the Clann Alba Forums is the move to a new Virtual Private Server, hosted at KnownHost. Moving from a shared server to a VPS has given us an amazing increase in page loading speeds. It is our hope this will provide for a more robust forum experience.

The statistics for the forum are a bit depressing. Since our last report, nearly two weeks ago, there have been few positive changes.

977 threads (+22) - 3,394 posts (+87) - 51 members (+2)

Google shows 2,750 indexed pages (-1,110) - 1,510 inbound links (+18) and a search on Clann Alba brought the forums in at numbers 1 and 2, with links to the forums appearing at 3, 4 and 5 for a total of 5 links on page 1 (-2) Two weeks ago, Google showed 1,300,000 results for this search, whilst there are only 418,000 today.

Yahoo shows 6,600 indexed pages (-140) - 4,220 inbound links (+230) and a search on Clann Alba brought the forums in at numbers 1 and 3 of 64,200 results. This is an improvement of 1 link on page 1.

AltaVista shows 6,800 indexed pages (-70) - 4,270 inbound links (+130) and a search on Clann Alba brought the forums in at numbers 1 and 2 of 64,300 results, which represents no change.

We’re hoping the forum will see a bit more activity over the next few weeks.

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Along with all the other changes taking place with our Web sites and forums, we’ve just upgraded the blog to the latest version of WordPress, version 2.5.

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Here are the most recent statistics from the Clann Alba Forums -

955 threads - 3,307 posts - 49 members

Google - 3,660 indexed pages (-310) - 1,492 inbound links (+72) - a search for Clann Alba brings the forum in at number 1 and 2, with links to the forum coming in at numbers 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 of 1,300,000 results. 7 spots on page one!

Yahoo - 6,740 indexed pages (+2,410) - 4,090 inbound links (-1,190) - a search for Clann Alba brings the forum in at number 1 of 64,200 results.

AltaVista - 6,870 indexed pages (+2,470) - 4,140 inbound links (-1,070) - a search for Clann Alba brings the forum in at numbers 1 and 2, with a link to the forum coming in at number 10 of 64,200 results.

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We’ve been experiencing such excellent service with Downtown Host and are now preparing to move all of our Web sites into one large package.

This will allow us to have all the sites hosted by one host and will also allow site maintenance to be done in one place.

We apologize for any possible downtime we might experience, but we’re confident this move will benefit everyone.

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I took a few minutes to check the search engine statistics for the Clann Alba Forums.

Google - 3,970 indexed pages - 1,420 inbound links - a search on the phrase Clann Alba brings the forum in at numbers 1 and 2, with links to the forum coming in at numbers 4, 5, 8 and 9 of a total of 1,310,000 results.

Yahoo - 4,330 indexed pages - 5,280 inbound links - a search on the phrase Clann Alba brings the forum in at numbers 1 and 3 of 67,300 results

AltaVista - 4,400 indexed pages - 5,210 inbound links - a search on the phrase Clann Alba brings the forum in at numbers 1 and 2 of 67,300 results.

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I just took the time to see how the Clann Alba Forums are holding up on the search engines.

Google shows a total of 3,800 indexed pages. There are a total of 848 inbound links. And a search on the term ‘Clann Alba’ shows approximately 1,290,000 returns. Of that number, the forums hold the numbers one and two positions, with a signature link on another forum being third. Number one on Google!

Yahoo shows 4,350 indexed pages, with 5,040 inbound links. Doing the same search on ‘Clann Alba’ brought back approximately 68,200 returns. Of that number, the forums hold the numbers one and three positions, with a signature link on another forum being number ten. Number one on Yahoo!

Alta Vista shows 4,430 indexed pages and 4,950 inbound links. Searching ‘Clann Alba’ brought back approximately 68,300 returns. Of that number, the forums hold the numbers one and two positions, with a signature link on another forum being number nine. Number one on Alta Vista!

We hope to continue to build on these numbers in the coming months.

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As many of you may already be aware, the Clann Alba Forums were recently upgraded to the latest version of the vBulletin forum software, 3.7.0 Beta 5.

This upgrade into the latest branch of the forum software necessitated the removal of the vBlogetin blogging script we had used for a few months.  Since there were very few members that were actually blogging, it was felt the removal would not make too great an impact on the forums.

However it was convenient to have a place to keep our members and guests aware of what is happening and what is being planned for the forums, without the information being lost in forum posts and threads.

Hence the decision to set up this Clann Alba Forums Blog.

The new forum software has several major changes, but they all seem to be changes that the majority of our current members are not necessarily interested in.  The ability to set up your own member’s profile with a customized look doesn’t seem to be the type of thing our members will appreciate or use.

There is one interesting change in the software and we have enabled it for our members to use.  You will now notice, at the bottom of each thread, there are four small social bookmarking icons.  Digg, Del.icio.us, Stumbleupon and Google are all available for members to click on, to save individual threads to the social bookmarking sites they like to use.

If you use social bookmarking, we encourage you to consider bookmarking the more educational threads, as that will make the threads more widely available to others.  This will, hopefully, increase traffic and registrations on the forums.

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The decision has been made to establish this blog to be used a central location for all the news, changes, updates and upgrades that are taking place on the Clann Alba Forums.

There are times when we will need to pull the forum down for maintenance and/or software installations and upgrades. We will make every effort to let our members and visitors aware of these times on this blog site.

The blog is set up the same as the Clann Alba Forums, in that you will be able to post comments to the blog entries, but you will first need to register. The registration process is quite simple and easy, so sign up today! Simply look over in the sidebar of this page and use the Register link in the Meta module.

Remember to bookmark this site and visit often.

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