OldMacManaic wrote:

hey @Phil

contact the techs at Boardhost and see what kind of SEO options they have available. old school <meta> tags with keywords are out, but there's all kinds of plug-ins and third-party applets designed for the less educated folks who populate sales and marketing. bet they have something we could use; might even be a wizard where you enter a string of keywords.

mos def everybody copy the url (https://oliveducksfootbalfans.boardhost.com/index.php) and paste it in a Notepad/gedit .txt doc, or send it to yourself in an email. if I had to guess what it might be I'd still be wandering in the desert.

Good suggestion on backing up the site address. Everyone should do this.

I'll check with Boardhost. They haven't returned my past 2 inquiries so don't hold your breath waiting for an answer. 

Duckball wrote:

Puddle Huddle didn't work because once Charles gave it the kiss of death, all his minions went back to FD. 
After that, it just could never gain any traction. Basically had 4 guys making posts. Guy that ran it was never anywhere to be seen or heard from. One day just pops in and says "this site is dead and I won't be paying for it anymore". I get it, but I wonder why he started the sight in the first place?  I personally thought "Puddle Huddle" was a horrible name as far as someone finding it with a google search, but....???

As far as my .02 goes, I am not a social media guy. No facebook, twitter, tik-tok etc. in my world. I like forums but I'm an old bastard. I don't really need tons of articles/videos/pictures. You can get those at any 20 various sites. It's the chit-chat amongst everyday fans that I like. I'm also a cheap bastard and there is still just enough free content out there for me to get by for now, but I know that will change at some point probably. 

Forums may be dying, but I know for a fact bare-bones sports forums can still thrive. I follow the Maple Leafs on something called HF Boards. It's primarily a collection of Hockey forums, but on Toronto's site there are posts with thousands and thousands of replies . It's so active it's almost out of control. But there are no articles or videos to be seen. Matter of fact I've never even noticed any advertising!!  Maybe the NHL subsidizes it or something I don't know. On a smaller and local scale, Ducksattack.com has a somewhat active forum and it has no videos, articles etc.....

I know nothing of how these things work, but common sense makes me think a more Duck-centric name change could corral few more search hits?  But it's probably not that simple and I don't have much common sense   😄

A small group is fine. But even 10 to 20 more posters would be awesome. Then again, maybe we are toast. But I've appreciated what we have anyway, so thanks. 👍

Thanks for the feedback and useful information. 

The PuddleHuddle site was coming up right behind this site when you googled "Oregon Ducks Forum" at the 6th option down. BTW: I just noticed today that fishduck went from holding the #1 spot for ages down to #7 today. This tells me that between this site and PuddleHuddle simply being on the first page of Google sites doesn't attract new members. Maybe it's a bit like Moe's on the Simpsons in that who's going to want to pop in a place that only has the same 4 bar flies?

Our site took a real hit about the time Covid canceled March Maddness. A lot of members never came back once sports started again. We've lossed a few members over politics being brought up and disagraments and what not. Some members have more than likely lost the ability to find the site. On the flip side we've gained a few posters such as yourself.

DucksAttack has been around for ages. They have so many separate threads that aren't active that I find it hard to navigate. They gained a lot of members ages away so I'm assuming that's what keeps them going.    

Having some kind of content seems to attract members even if it's amature hour and not true journalism. 

I mean we could try to reach out to partner with somebody else? Partner with a former Duck legend? Anybody friends with Dan Fouts? Well, now I'm just going down a rabbit hole with far fetched ideas. 

We're really left with just asking members to reach out to any Duck family members, friends neighbors, or anywhere else you could post this site online. It's kind of a lousy last resort type option. 

As I mentioned before switching to a nicer site and having a better name would be nice, but on it's own may not attract anybody new.  

We're really still at the drawing board. One thing is for sure is that the site serves a niche for Ducks fans that don't like social media and over the top moderation. Being totally free is another hallmark of our site. Most importantly we have great posters. 

I'm with you that I enjoy this as it is, but it would be great to attract a few more members.