If you have been following me for some time now, then you should have noticed that i am a guy that likes to experiment and commit mistakes.
It is how we learn right? At least that’s what i hope. lol
Well, i have a forum with over 1000 members and a very decent traffic count each day.
I am using Simple Machines to power the forum and i was using the version 1.1.4 with a great looking template with ads very well placed, specially the adsense link units.
The forum database was getting too much garbage because i installed many modifications for the forum, i try and then delete some of them. But the deletion usually doesn’t erase the database data inserted when installing the mod, so along these years the garbage was accumulating. And lately, i was receiving to much database errors for my taste. Fortunately only i could see them, but that was pissing me off so i decided it was time to get ride of the crap…
What have i done?
well, i could easily have just upgraded to the newest stable version of SMF (1.1.5), but i had a little itch compelling me to install SMF 2.0 Beta 3.1 Public.
Ok, now you can say “What was this guy smoking? Pot!?!” lol
It’s a risk to install a beta release on a production site (production meaning fully launched and active site), but as i am very comfortable installing, updating and modifying SMF and i had backups to help me in case of despair, and considering this i installed the beta version after doing the proper tables deletions to clean the junk.
Did a full install of SMF because the majority of the modifications weren’t compatible, template included!!! That is why my revenue from adsense was screwed.
I have to stick with the default template, because no one is making templates compatible with version 2.0 due to the fact that the template structure will be completely rewritten for the final release.
With the old template, i was getting around 15-20 clicks a day making me a nice revenue in the end of the day, but now, with the default template with the ads in the exact same place, my clicks fell to 1!!!
The SEO structure was also changed, and this can potentially have some impact on revenue because google is still crawling the new addresses and i have seen a decrease in traffic coming from the big G.
This could be a concerning problem, but to say the truth, i don’t really care. Yes it is money that im not winning anymore, but i can use my forum to help develop an excellent piece of software by reporting any bugs found, and i was really looking forward to try the new options available in version 2.0, and it was well worth the risk i took. 
So, if you are performing very well with your smf forum don’t upgrade to version 2.0, unless you are still using the default template and you are comfortable as i am with SMF management.
Popularity: 8% [?]
It is accumulating… i need vacation. I need to dedicate myself to blogging to stress out (yes, blogging keeps the stress away :)), to do projects that are left behind… if all goes well i will manage to do this in a couple of weeks….
So ere are the top commentators for June:
This guy had a great life, but due to certain circumstances (his wife broke his heart) he decided to sell his house, his belongings, his friends and job! on Ebay!!!
This auction is gathering a lot of attention, and believe it or not there are currently 37 bids, with the top bid reaching the AU $315,100. The auction will last 4 days more, but im sure that this value can double, making Ian an original millionaire!
