Topic preview hover

[Phait]

http://forums.frugalsworld.com/vbb/forumdisplay.php?f=73

Point at a thread/topic and you'll see a preview of it popup when you point at it. That forum uses vBulletin too, what about implementing that feature here?

This would be mostly useful for tabbed browser users who open threads/forums in tabs and want a quick preview before they decide to open it - instead of opening like 6 tabs and working their way reading through 'em only to find it wasn't worth their time - so this feature could increase productivity on the user end. Sometimes I see topics that, while their titles intrigue me the actual content doesn't.

[ADM]

It's very bad for Search Engine Optimization and it adds a tonne more queries to the topic listing page as well.

So if Joe wants to kill his search engine ranking AND his server then he should add it.

[Phait]

Source?

[ADM]

http://www.vbseo.com/f10/thread-preview-detrimental-seo-2544/

That's for the SEO thing, the query thing doesn't need a source because it's a given.

[Phait]

I don't know how big the SEO thing is for a forum. I mean, I'd imagine 3DR wants traffic to www.3drealms.com and that links to specific topics found on Google or something can't be that important.

Example with Frug's

Specific search for "falcon nosewheel steering" (common inquiry)
About 85 results
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=falcon+nosewheel+steering+site%3Aforums.frugalsw orld.com&btnG=Search

If I go to the forum and do a search within the forum itself I get like 72 results on Falcon 4.0 forum and like 13 on Falcon 4.0 Allied Force -- so about 85

So I don't see the SEO issue.

[ADM]

It's not as simple as that.. trust me. I looked into SEO for a long long time and it works. Traffic can easily be boosted by following simple rules.

In either way the main concern Joe would have against this is the fact that it would use more queries, something that is an important issue when running popular forums.

[Phait]

I won't vouch for Joe but from glancing at Frug's, which isn't a developer and seems to be funded by ads:

Threads:110,285
Posts: 1,330,112
Members: 17,270
Active Members: 3,877

3DR:
Threads: 22,514
Posts: 412,958
Members: 12,435

It would seem 3DR could handle more queries. I dunno.

[ADM]

Umm.. Joe prunes posts and members so you can't go by that.

[Joe Siegler]

Yeah, if I never pruned posts or users, we'd dwarf that site in every category.

I'm against things that add more stress to the server. This definitely would.