What Happened to WF During My Six-Month Vacation?

The internet marketers no longer view forum posting as a means of generating targeted traffic to their websites, and therefore now spend less time doing forum posting and spend more time online posting on social media sites to interact with members of their niche markets

Most of the best posters (the ones that actually knew what they were talking about) are not contributing much if anything anymore. There are a few great members still jumping in every now and then but it is nothing like it used to be.

Wow. That's a shame. I mean, I've been on hiatus for less than 6 months. So much appears to have changed in such a short period of time....

Welcome back! I started here within the past six month so we haven't crossed paths yet, but it seems like there are only a few dozen who share genuinely great advice. I'm not sure how it was before, but there's only so many times people can answer, "Noob Help Needed- Tell Me How to Get Rich with IM" without pulling your hair out.

Alot of the newbies probably quit when they found out it actually takes time to make money but there are always new people starting everyday

Read through the Main Forum, and even some of the sub forums and you'll soon get your answer...

I believe that there are less spammers on this forum now than there was before. That's where the loss of 2k daily visitors went. They weren't able to make money scamming users here anymore and fled.

How long ago was it that Alan sold the site to Freelancer? Was that more or less than six months ago? Time flies for me lately and I lose track. Maybe that is what you see as different.

Actually, it was about 6 months ago - October-Novemberish? That's what I'm trying to figure out - was it the new ownership, new rules, something else?

The site looks largely dead compared to where it was 6 months ago.

Regular contributors of useful information we're run off, left, or quit posting regularly. Spam has, in my opinion, increased since new ownership took over. Most new threads are questions that can be answered by searching the forum, but they get asked over and over.. Advice is given, but usually isn't taken. For those who are successful online, this forum offers very little now-a-days.. in my opinion, of course.

Now you see how things can decline when you take unexpected and long
vacations so I hope that you learned your lesson.

-Ray Edwards

As for my observations, even though I haven't really paid much attention to traffic stats, I did notice however that with the purchase of WF, came an extra large influx of less experienced people asking very basic start up questions. Sometimes in more than one thread, and the next day the same questions again.

I then watch those same folks answering other newcomers questions, resulting in a blind leading the blind scenario.

Maybe there is only so much that a veteran Warrior could ingest, before deciding that the main forum thread is now becoming somewhat of dud, and becomes a time waster having to sort through tons of basic questions that he/she may not want to answer for the umpteenth time.

This may then explain some of what Janice touched upon earlier....

So how do we fix this?

Maybe a separation of the "main internet discussion forum" into:

"beginner", "intermediate", and "advanced"?

This might makes things more interesting for those on a particular experience level,
and may cause some return traffic from those who left for one reason or the other.

I certainly would enjoy a forum where beginners might discuss how to create an eBook cover or make their first sale online,

and intermediates might discuss how turn turn their steady $2000 a month income into $5000 - $10000,

and where advanced marketers might discuss taking it to the next level, and talk about earning their first, or next million, in a more serious realistic manner.

Just a thought....

People are quitting...

The rules changed concerning WSO's - if you want to post a free WSO you have to post it in the classifieds section, also you can no longer make claims of money earned. This alone has changed a lot of the traffic, slightly tightened the market. Newbies continue to seek the golden grail, how can I make a fortune from this new technology within a few months...eventually the message sinks in that you have to build a business, I believe it is more widely appreciated now. But there is still a lot of traffic.

They have returned to their day job

In addition to the reasons given there was also an update of the forum version itself thrown into the mix, for the best part is was broken in many places and was nothing short of painful to use the forum. There are still broken parts such as images not showing and faults when you click to view images, It has been reported but nothing is done to repair the faults to a point where you say why bother asking again, so compound a dud forum with the above and you have a why bother moment here.

Here's your answer from Alexa.com: http://screencast.com/t/YCSk5c4Q

I agree there has been a significant shift in the type of threads being opened in the main forum. There have always been a lot of threads started by newbies asking questions that can be answered with the search function, but that was balanced out by a number of threads by experienced marketers sharing their knowledge, giving great tips, asking pointed questions which sparked helpful discussions & debates, etc. I remember a few years ago, even not too recently, it was common to see guys (and ladies of course) with 8000+ posts sharing stuff in the main forum that was of better quality than *some* WSO's and even debating and comparing strategies. I remember thinking, man, if this guy's sharing that kind of info for free, his WSO's must be awesome. Man, that was a magical time to be a newbie learning the ropes. Sadly, I don't see much of those old Warriors anymore. What a great pity. It was a time when the forum really served as a place for sharing and helping, and of course, opportunities. Now, it kinda has more of a feel of a hunting ground for easy targets with a budget.

The War Room is still there at least, and it's still the place to be on this forum. Although it's primarily a place for sharing things you'd normally pay for, maybe it could have a sub-forum for war room members to have those sort of intermediate to advanced discussions? Not sure if that's the best solution but I'm just throwing it out there. It sure would be a way of having a forum with lots of high value discussions where one doesn't need to wade through pages of the same old threads asking the same old questions. It would also mean that newbies wanting to take part and learn in that environment would have to pay to be there, thinning out the list of serious people wanting an education from those magic button seekers - at least somewhat.

Where did Allen go? Have people moved on to a different forum somewhere?

I bounce in and out of here, too. This time 'round, it is the 'Writers Block' that seems to be missing. In addition to Bing being the 'new thing', lol. All the freelance writer wannabes and those former freelnace writers now claiming enormous success with Aff Mkgtng and Lists seem to be missing. One, even claiming to be making over one million dollars per day from article syndication, using only a staff of college students.

Maybe so, and good for him if true, but extraordinary claims like that require some measure of substantiation. The 'Writers Block' was a large portion of the posts here, relative to their actual number. Personally? Well, because their claims, in general, were of major success, yet NO PROOF, even remotely circumstantial, ever accompanied most of those claims, MeThinks that the forum now refreshingly lacks a bunch 'o Hot Air.

What is left is the underbelly of a forum, who's majority of participants, regardless of country, are new to the whole thing. This is NOT a specialized professional Internet Marketing forum. I have no complaints with it, there is a lot of information to be learned here. Of course plenty of BS, but that isn't the site owner's fault, past or present - it is just the way it be ...

Let me tell a couple of you fellow Americans/Western Euros in this thread sumpin'. Some of you can kiss my ass with your comments about slave labor and implying because the majority of visitors (says, Alexa - which means nothing to me, as I give her no data myself and never have) are Indian that that somehow makes this place worse.

First of all, their English is waaaaay better than your Hindi - they're already a leg up on you. When more of that Fiverr money spreads around India, and the population as a whole has more money, some of those folks are going to make bank, and in 7 years, people like you are going to be buying $5,000 tickets to see some of them speak perfect English and try to HELP you make money too ...

Good for them, I say. It ain't their fault that not too long ago the German Families sitting on the throne in England and running the City of London were in there with their military, enforcing the Caste System and asset stripping the place, removing large amounts of natural resources for their own pocket.

Were it not for all of the CHEESY American and Euro IMers, there wouldn't have been such a market for spun articles and $5 everything elses.

In the end, I am glad there was, though, for a rising tide should raise all boats, even those halfway around the globe in the ports of India, the Phillipines, etc.

Everything changes. It is 2015 now. You want to hang out with the 'pros' on an Internet Forum, get ready to fork out $99/month for a forum membership. This place is FREE for me to visit and post, AND there is STILL some good info here.

I'm cool with that.

Freelancer is a far more successful company than anyone here complaining about their 'slave labor' they brought with them. I actually trust some of the decisions were made with more behind the scenes info than we will ever have ...

[/rant]

It's really weird - like I'm in some kind of time warp or something. I'm seeing questions about finding meta tags, article spinning, HubPages, etc. Mostly from fairly new members - not much in the way of chit chat from the more well-known folks that used to be all over the board.

Weird....

I think it is because of the repetition of the questions on this forum. The newbies do not search for basic topics before they post. I saw questions like "what is internet marketing" on the forum.

It's quality not quantity in my view. 5000k to 3000k tells you nothing other than a number. Is it that those 2k we're spammy posters? We're they hardened IM experts? Still love WF. A lot of good stuff here

i guess most of us get tired of answering the same questions over and over. if you cant figure out how to apply the knowledge of "what i would do with my last $200" because you have $300 and feel you are in a different situation, then you ain't no entrepreneur. if that's you, then this I.M. thing aint for you.

for many years, i have helped new folks and engaged in higher level marketing discussions with the old school guys. but with those old school folks mostly gone and the newbies running rampart looking for easy overnight solutions that just dont exist, it just not as fun to stop by here anymore.

i dont feel like i am helping anyone around here anymore. i think thats a sentiment many old schoolers identify with too.

i just cant help many of these people. even with some 20 years experience of running online businesses, i have no clue how to take a newbie with $50 and have them making big money quickly. Maybe i could start over with just $50 in my pocket with all my skills and knowledge, but for a newbie to do it, its just laughable.

statically, they are better off buying lottery tickets. but most wouldn't appreciate that as honest financial advice.

i can see my days being numbered around here too.

p.s. mr fox. the name you didnt name was attached to another popular person who was banned here recently. i knew that from tricking them many years ago to visit a page an seeing the ips . i was told to "stand down" when i reported it back then. some of us knew those rumors were true long before they were outed.

and i was one of the main ones to call that "person" out in the thread where they made the ridiculous claim.

in fact, at the time me and one of the very senior WF mods then had a very heated discussion about why that person was even allowed to make such a ridiculous claim without repercussions.

@onSubie...

Thanks. I appreciate that. I'm an IT guy by trade and was offered an outstanding (and lucrative) opportunity to spend the summer (and part of the fall) opening a new casino on the Las Vegas strip.

After several months of 16-hour days, a successful opening, and a significant paycheck to go with it, I decided to take a few months off. When I returned, things appeared to be very different.

Two main things:

1) Freelancer's move to take over the cart system
in the WSOF has pushed most of those offers to
people's own sites. That's got to account for a huge
decline in traffic.

2) The guru-level marketers no longer have as
much reason to hang out here, as others pointed
out.

I think Freelancer has moved too quick on the
cash grab instead of really understanding why
this place worked in the first place.

I don't think the questions are the real issues
because lame questions have always been around
and they've never changed - but the quality of the
answers has certainly declined and it's seemingly
a bunch of the blind trying to lead the blind.

There's not much to learn (as a 15-year vet) and
that means there's not much reason to hang
around because the interaction experience isn't
there for the more advanced - it's richer elsewhere.

And without those people you're sunk.

X

Just an FYI, they deleted my first post in this thread.... there you go, there is the #1 reason this forum sucks now a days > over moderation to the point people can't even discuss things which is what a forum is for in the first place. The definition of insanity (or North Korea) 'here is a forum, but you can only discuss what we want you to discuss.'

If Facebook, Reddit and Twitter did this people would leave overnight in there millions.

EDIT/UPDATE:

Seeing as they deleted my post, here is a list of what I think is wrong with this forum, some of it has been this way since before the buy out by Freelancer and some of it is new.

#1 - Over moderation. Some of the biggest and best places online are seldom moderated and when they are they are moderated well or are self moderated.

An example of the over moderation is that I once brought up the sales and marketing topic of cannabis because the way I was reading it, cannabis was one of the fastest growing new industries in the USA, they deleted my thread and all I was trying to do was discuss a business topic which is currently being discussed by everyone. The New York Times, Rolling Stone, the BBC etc and yet this forum deleted the thread as if it was somehow illegal to discuss. Ridiculous!

Another example is that I used the word "sucks" in my sig. Firstly it's not even a curse word and secondly, even f it is, who cares... what is this kinder garden?
I'm a grown man and if I want to curse I should be able to like I can in my regular day to day life at home, work and 99% of all other places online.

#2 Far too many good people left because of scams and perceived scams.

WF was quick to act on real scams but there was a massive grey area and what used to happen is that if you complained to the forum staff they would say 'oh, it's between you and the seller' I'm not saying this is right or wrong, I am just saying this was a problem and it made a lot of good people leave. The new owners need to change this old image of the forum.

#3 This forum acts to facilitate the sale of far too many Make Money Online (MMO) info products, memberships, coaching etc. Most people have had it with that sort of thing.

Marketers basically selling 'how to make money' info products teaching new marketers how to do the exact same thing gets old really quickly and especially when some users make 99% of their entire income selling products on the warrior forum.

This made people leave because IMO it showed people that the WF didn't really care about it's customers enough to protect them from these info products that realistically where not going to make people rich and were never going to create a sustainable business for anyone and instead made people feel that the forum cared more about making a quick buck.

If you go anywhere else online, it's virtually impossible to sell the kinds of things that get sold here and I think that is a HUGE problem, The forum (in the past at least) had this idea that so long as it was not an outright scam it was between the buyer and seller to discuss guarantees, consumer protection, disclaimers etc.

Unfortunately having this ideology just scares people away when there are so many technological solutions to this problem e.g. reporting tools, 'I dont want to see this buttons' etc.

#4 Far too many of the same threads. New users asking the same thing that has been asked and answered 1000 times over. Other forums would just link the new thread to an already existing one.

#5 Nothing new. The Internet has evolved, technology and how we communicate and sell things has evolved but WF has not.

Bitcoin, 3D printing, Drones, Tipping, Social media, Mobile, Apps...

WF needs to catch up.

The last and final point from me is that the WF needs a total re-brand and over haul.

It is no longer a forum.

It hasn't been since well before the Freelancer take over.

It is a market place for WSO's.

In the forums own words it is "The worlds largest internet marketing marketplace".

The reasons people came to the forum a decade ago are still the same reasons they come to the forum today. The only difference is that they are still being given the same thing (WSO's).

People have evolved. People have gotten smarter and for more attuned.

They don't come to a forum expecting to be sold and when they figure it out, they do one of 3 thrings. 1, they leave. 2, they buy something and maybe buy something else and then leave or 3, they will become one of the sellers.

That's not how a forum works.

That is how a marketplace works.

The forum is not a forum. It is a market place. That is the number one reason people have left and are continuing to leave.

How do you fix this?

Easy.

Separate the forum from the marketplace.

i dont even know if it was them pushing their cart system as much as it was things like killing of free wso's and things like income claims. you can still have income claims on your own site.

that has been a long time coming really. once you get to a certain size, it basically a must or you are going to have legal issues.

but thats just the wso section. and to be honest, most of the power wso sellers haven't been all that active in the main forum for years. that was really only at the beginning of the wso section before it digressed into the mess it has become now.

the silly questions have become the norm here rather than the exception. the most thought provoking threads these days are usually ones like this...rant threads. They still bring out the more experienced folks usually. Which is pretty sad and at the same time a good indication of the state of things.

Honestly, I'm not even sure why i come around here anymore. Habit I guess - no loss if I get banned

Too many people who can't use the "Search" function inundating the forum with the same tired questions and complaints about how all WSOs are scams and "Wahhhh I had to sit through some upsells."

Basically, it's become a place to whine and it's become a buyer's forum instead of a seller's forum. No one is talking about marketing or selling. It's just a bunch of noobs asking "What's the best method for making money?" and "How much can I make with $200?"

I stopped logging in for a bit because it was too filled with crap. Came back this week after being insanely busy and...still the same sh*t.

I just saw 1488 viewing. That is half of the usual 3000, but it gets worse. BMOC or big man on campus is gone. What can we say. Look at the Alexa score. Oh yes, it keeps on getting worse. Folks, we are in a tail spin. Hard to pull out when you are in one. Let us all work together to save out group. Frankly, it is not too late to turn things around, and we can still win. Perhaps this will make us stronger as a group. I hope so - peace.

http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ml#post9988321

Okay, I'm TRYING to be nice - this is my first attempt of the day!

I'm pretty new to the forums, but am not new to making money online and have actually lurked on and off here for a few years.

Never mind people making informative posts. The biggest challenge at the moment is actually finding a thread where posters can string an English sentence together. I'm not a grammar nazi - I'm not talking about people mixing up "your" and "you're" etc. I'm not talking about typos. But FFS, 50% of the posts on here are in terrible broken English with no punctuation. It really is hard work understanding WTF they are trying to say and it's pointless trying to engage with them in any meaningful conversation. That would be fine if communication skills weren't an integral part of IM, but they are. Then when you click on their sigs and see their "content", it's no surprise at all they aren't making any money.

I realise that not everyone is a native English speaker. But seriously, if you want to do business in English, then your English needs to be excellent. I speak fluent French but it is still only my second language. I don't make many mistakes but it would be noticeable to a French native speaker and so I would never dream of trying to do business in the French language unless I got everything proof-read.

I'm sick of reading posts where the poster has made no effort at all to be understood and yet expects the reader to wrap his head around it and give him an answer.

The moderators on here have gotten extremely rude.

They don't really care about the people that are on here. Apparently, they believe this forum is too big to fail. I had an issue today. One of my posts was moved because the fellow that messaged me claimed I was off topic.

So, when I sent him other examples of people that were clearly off topic that never get moved , he told me to quit messaging him.

What that says to me is: Screw You Pal!

Oh well, there's always Wicked Fire or 9 million other places that are growing that care.

ELMO

Everyone is leaving... and they are all going to facebook

There's a good community in facebook but i dont know if i could mention
the group name here

Also, it's easier to communicate with people there, easy to add friends and you
can actually meet them once you get to talk to them.

Harder for people to scam as well since you can see their mutual friends and
real identities

IM is also changing into something more real... in the sense that more people are
leaning towards building relationships on and offline

but..

Ill still give warriorforum lots of credit for helping newbies build their
foundation into the world of IM

if people can just use the "search" button, they can learn a lot here. There's
no need to keep on asking the same question each time.

If people in here can start building real relationships...

and stop treating each other as a means to make a sale

then maybe..

just maybe... we can still revive the real value that was lost
in this forum

The forum has just been lacking in controversy.

PM me if anyone has any leads. I'll stir the pot.

Thanks Arissa!

Holy crap.

Instead of deleting this thread, the mods simply moved it to OT.

... perhaps they're maturing?

Heres the time line....

Big company buys popular website which is doing well > Big company has no idea how to run said website > Website tanks because life time members aren't happy > They leave and move on > Big company has loads of posts of little validity > Old members move to this forum and post funny stuff > We all laugh

Scary thing about that traffic drop is the fact that search traffic remained pretty consistent. That means the traffic drop can only be attributed to existing users simply leaving and not returning. Wow

Freelancer "bought" the wso market place....not the main forum. I just mean that's what they paid for really.

The reality is that they made several major changes to that part of the forum which drastically changed the marketplace. The main forum and those posts were a relatively small amount of the wf traffic. And you could and still can see that in the main forum, it's mostly driven by a relatively small number of people. The wso section is mostly affiliate traffic. They come, they buy, they leave. It's much more unique traffic.

So with all the changes there, it's not surprising the traffic numbers are off and have changed demographics. Their payment system really wasn't the big deal as I see it. It had some normal issues, but let's be real, for most products, there really isn't much difference between warrior+, Jvzoo and warrior payments. I know there are some and warrior payments is the newer and weaker one. But which of those platforms you sell through isn't very likely to make or break your product. People just like to blame the obvious things.

The real obvious difference that affected traffic being drive. To wso's more than anything was the banning of income claims. When they did that, people did what they did when cb started cleaning house a couple years ago.... They bailed for places with less rules. So now, that traffic is going to other places where incomes claims are not banned.

You can read between the lines of jvzoos recent changes too that reflect them trying to distance themselves from some of the nonsense too. They aren't outright saying why...just saying to protect the platform, but many of us have a damn good idea of what they are protecting it from.

The wso marketplace really drives the forum now...not the other way around as it was originally intended many years ago....but that's been sthe case for a few years now. It's not new to freelancer.

A couple of quick observations...


I see some of the older members on Facebook. Social media is a major competitor that didn't exist in the earlier years of the WF. You can join a number of FB groups all from a single account.


Another reason the Main isn't what it used to be is that there are so many subforums now, about just about every topic. There really isn't much left to discuss in the Main. There's still some pretty good conversations going on in the subforums.

It died.

Sorry it's had to get to 116 posts to finally get your answer.

God joined up.

Hey Wolf welcome back - sounds like a great gig you had in Vegas. First thread I've read in a while. Actual discussion. Yeah the forum has changed. IMHO the average IQ has dropped 10 or 20 points. So many pointless unanswerable questions. Whats the best this or should I do that or how can I whatever. Nobody wants to learn - just get money with no work. Everybody selling each other the same pipe dreams. A circle jerk. I did like when you would get into heated discussions once in a while. Great threads. btw I still maintain the site and FB page you made for me. Makes a little money but its more fun building the following. I learned more about IM from Alexa's posts and actually have a folder of them on another computer that I don't have online anymore. Miss Alexa. Maybe the quality of the old Warrior Forum was a mirror of the the way the internet and IM was. Sadly,now, perhaps it is all just pablum for the masses. Wow - I just spent an hour and a half on warrior forum, just like the old days.

I still have no idea wtf growth hacking is supposed to be.

-Chris

Wow.......

Has it occurred to anyone that FL might not see much of a difference?

and if so they might be right?

It pretty hard for a group to look in a mirror but sometimes you have to try. 80+% of what goes on in a make-money-online-by-pushing-make-money-online environment (and you are in denial if you don't admit that is mostly what WF has been for loooong time) is garbage and/or basic common sense.

The longer you have been in IM and on this board the larger the blinders grow that you or your online friends are invested with brilliance but the difference to outsiders of what you call great info and interesting as opposed to garbage goes for D+ and D grade material to outsiders and its hard for them to get the plus difference.

IMers evaluation of what is good and great can't be believed anyway. We are the set that generally has been hoodwinked that a pdf written in a few days can actually get away being called a "product".

So to me the influx of newbs really just exacerbated an existing problem that already had the place in steep decline. For all the talk of people leaving because of FL a lot of people just left to get back to what works...their offline jobs.

Seriously the only place I ever read anything in the last four years that was truly enlightening was the offline business section. Its probably the only section that truly takes business seriously and that says a lot about internet marketing.

So I would not be surprised if at least some people at FL, not being in the IM scene, wonder to themselves "what are these people talking about. It was all a pile of nonsense even before we got here"

Can't blame people for leaving , the mods need to use a bit of commonsense once in a while, spending 10 minutes writing a reply to a post where someone asked for help, then getting your post removed because you say something like.. Check out this video it will give you more info.. Is totally different to a 1 line post saying check out this video

Attitudes like that makes people want to say screw you WF!