Also another forum that has 20 times the traffic of Sciforums the monthly server bill is $3400, so I don't think the Sciforum server costs more than $1500 monthly at most...Plazma could correct me on this, although I doubt he will....
Well, basically yes. Most of guests are spiders and search engine bots which search for keywords (at least 60% of them). So, basically, they're not clicking on ads. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
if memory serves me, google cut porf off cos we talked about (and maybe more) gaming the system. i advise caution
It was actually because the site was down for so long and then it came back up. The time that it was down there were no clicks, then suddenly there were a lot. This made them suspicious. And, apparently, some people were deliberately clicking links to save the site. However, seeing as how members can't even see ads, I think that we're safe from such discussions. It is true that Google's stick up its ass seems to have a stick up its ass about their ads though.
Seriously, I don't see why the site's value would go up. I think the direction where online forums go is specialization. there are forums for just about anything. From bikeriders to dogowners and nurses or whatever, they have their own forums. So a forum which wants to do it all, well, currently Sciforums just doesn't. The 2 most active forums are still religion and politics and beside that for almost any other forums you can actually find a specialized website...
Actually, Its a known fact that sciforums has only gained popularity because of a certain member whose user name is Rick Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Rick
Nowadays there are forum softwares for free. I said less than 20K, it depends on when the software was written, but prices has been dropping...
A forum is only worth the sum of its contributors efforts. SciForum's members' contributions are worth way more than $38,000.00. Plazma knows this, perhaps that is why SF is not for sale?
I'm pretty sure with a little improvement this forum can be worth much more, but admins does not listen to my suggestions now, that I'm here, its already doubled