New Website Layout

Ok, the new website layout has been uploaded.

Would love to hear your feedback, good or bad, any problems, errors please let me know.

The same content from the old scrappy design is still there for a bit until it settles with Google's search engine, so the text and text layout is the same and still looks average but the design is new.

You will notice the new section for 'SALES" and "PARTS".

I have been approved by Ebay to show adds on this site so eventually on those pages will be Ebay adds of Nissan Patrol Parts and Nissan Patrol cars for sale.

This will have to be done so I can atleast try and pay for the cost of this forum as you all know we have shiploads of people using this site and I am on the highest internet server plan possible which munches up a lot of money each month. Trying to get this forum to atleast pay for itself.

Anyways, This is a huge change for Google and now we play the waiting game until Sir Google finds the site in a day or two and decides whether the radical change is too much and drops us out of the organic Google results or keeps us here where we are. Thats why I had to keep all of the original text and text format for now until it settles down.

Fingers crossed we stay the same or we may loose shiploads of the massive visitors we have each day....this design change had to be done sooner rather than later.

Cheers for everyones help!

I will fix up a lot of the general text layout which is still poor from the old site but It's a fresh new look which is good!

looks good Andy, job well done

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Originally Posted by AB

This will have to be done so I can atleast try and pay for the cost of this forum as you all know we have shiploads of people using this site and I am on the highest internet server plan possible which munches up a lot of money each month. Trying to get this forum to atleast pay for itself.

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Why dont you charge a small fee for membership to help with running cost???? I for 1 would pay a membership fee for such a great forum :)

Says in a borat voice.........very nice!

Looks great Andy!

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Originally Posted by toddrhind

Why dont you charge a small fee for membership to help with running cost???? I for 1 would pay a membership fee for such a great forum :)

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x 2

I didn't realize you were paying for it personally.

Looks the goods mate, haven't had much time to try and break it yet as my ISP has been down.

I saw your post of the new website and then the internet wen't down :( ....I was so keen to have a look...lol
I've seen some nicely layout sites and this one is right up there mate. WELL DONE

I think charging members would deter them from joining therefore this site would not grow but I think you should maybe setup a site donation account so members(especialy the active ones) can donate a few bucks every now and again to help this ball rolling...just an idea but what do you think guys???:smiley_thumbs_up::smiley_thumbs_up::smiley _thumbs_up:

Just to add, I'm happy to contriute either way.

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Originally Posted by NissPat

I think charging members would deter them from joining therefore this site would not grow but I think you should maybe setup a site donation account so members(especialy the active ones) can donate a few bucks every now and again to help this ball rolling...just an idea but what do you think guys???

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I agree NissPat, Charging members would deter some, and the site may not grow as big, but it would also stop all those joining just for the manuals. Your idea of a donation account is a brilliant idea :smiley_thumbs_up:

Great job AB. I dont know what your web site stats are but it sounds very busy. I have Google adds on our website www.minchinburyjets.net and it helps pay for the cost of the hosting and the site itself. I only get about 2000 hits per month and so far we have generated about $100.00 in 18 months. It all helps and I ave placed the adds at the bottom of the pages so they dont detract from the content of the site.

Google adds are free to setup http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/ads/

I would certainly donate time and money to give you a hand AB. Maybe you could assign "Moderators" to look after certain areas of the site.

Just a thought.

Cheers,

Rob

A great job Andy! It even looks more like a genuine Nissan site and much easier to navigate.
Charging fees sounds like a good idea, but may open up a can of worms for the organisers. Sponsorship, donations and advertising are the go.

Well done!

I think AB could create a members only forum and create custom user titles and a few other perks for paying members. I've seen it done on quite a few sites and it works well. People can talk about anything and everything, post what they like and generally be themselves.. where as we try and be nice and civilised here in the public eye :P

Maybe members get a nissanpatrol sticker, are privvy to more regular forum meet ups (maybe just the paying members) and we could get stubby holders made up or something down the track.

And the layout looks good AB. I see some dodgy AB graphics on the patrol door too! haha.. Microsoft paint? :P

I didn't see the old layout but I like this one. It does appear to need more action, (user input) I hate a dead forum. I was Administrator of a forum for online gaming until only a few weeks ago, until the game died and the players went off playing other games. Put the word around people, I would like to see this forum grow with people who like to input.

I like the fact the server is hosted in Melbourne.

Cheers for all your comments guys! I'll fix the text layout up soon.

Thanks Rob, yeah I know a fair bit bit about Google Adsense too so thats an area I'll head down soon. Being a new site you shouldn't throw Adsense on until atleast 6 months.

I will NEVER charge anyone to use this site as it will crumble in seconds.

Ebay ads will generate 20cents a click and similar margins with Adsense. Thinking about putting Adsense on the forum below the first post and the bottom but it will only show up for visitors so members will never see the adds which is good!

More to come soon!

Judging by the 7,000 guests at any one time, its obvious there are quite a few bots and spiders roaming the forum, so this site should be seen by plenty of people doing a "Nissan" or "Patrol" search on either of the search engines.

For sure, Google has now promoted us to a suggested site if you type in NissanPatrol without a space which is getting us thousands of hits now.

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Originally Posted by Timbo

And the layout looks good AB. I see some dodgy AB graphics on the patrol door too! haha.. Microsoft paint? :P

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Illustrator big guy, what kind of hack do you take me for...lol

AB, you have done a bloody brilliant job on this site, taking it from nothing to where it is now...........again thanks for the invite to join.
There are a lot of us who are willing to assist you in any way we can, all you have to do is ask mate.
Some of us do act a bit feral every now and again (not me though) but the offer is always there.

Thanks Doggie, appreciate the kind words mate!

Well, I had to restart the forum tonight and we also must have got penalised a wee bit from google as I have noticed we lost a lot of current visitors.

This was expected but as mentioned earlier, rather it happens now then later.

i new there was an error on the main page AB and its been bugging me............. i just couldn't figure it out till now.................. somebody put a picture of a GU there when clearly its meant to be a GQ. Can we have the error rectified asap *L*

AB, how much traffic is the site currently generating in a week or for the last month. The reason I ask is I would like to be able to work out a way to combine all the Manuals onto one server, photos can be hosted on other servers (Imageshack etc), but it seems best to have all the manuals hosted in one secure place. Having good, hard to find manuals lost due to members leaving and hosting links broken is a pain in the ass, especially when you have to keep uploading them.

There`s got to be a better way to host these files. I'm uploading another lot of Manuals (Patrol GU Service) to a different host, and at 160mb, I don't want to have to keep doing it. So far I have uploaded around 500mb of Manuals etc.

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Originally Posted by toddrhind

i new there was an error on the main page AB and its been bugging me............. i just couldn't figure it out till now.................. somebody put a picture of a GU there when clearly its meant to be a GQ. Can we have the error rectified asap *L*

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If you find me a great shot of a GQ on a white background mate then I haveno issues about putting that up..lol

I needed one with a white background and thats all I could find.

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Originally Posted by Chops

AB, how much traffic is the site currently generating in a week or for the last month. The reason I ask is I would like to be able to work out a way to combine all the Manuals onto one server, photos can be hosted on other servers (Imageshack etc), but it seems best to have all the manuals hosted in one secure place. Having good, hard to find manuals lost due to members leaving and hosting links broken is a pain in the ass, especially when you have to keep uploading them.

There`s got to be a better way to host these files. I'm uploading another lot of Manuals (Patrol GU Service) to a different host, and at 160mb, I don't want to have to keep doing it. So far I have uploaded around 500mb of Manuals etc.

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Thanks for your help Chops, we are getting thousands of hits each day which is great but a lot of the memory is being sucked up with the manual downloads.

Iv'e seen a lot of your links in the manuals. Maybe I should download them all and upload them to this server here so It's all in one place.

If your happy with that then I'll work on it later tonight.

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Originally Posted by AB

If your happy with that then I'll work on it later tonight.

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PM Sent
If you need help with anything let me know.

AB,

Just realized why Bandwidth is up so high. With all the Guests, including Google Bots, these things generate heaps of traffic on the site. Might pay to reduce the bots and spiders allowed on the site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlebot

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Originally Posted by Chops

AB,

Just realized why Bandwidth is up so high. With all the Guests, including Google Bots, these things generate heaps of traffic on the site. Might pay to reduce the bots and spiders allowed on the site.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Googlebot

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Yep agreed mate, We have dozens of bots on here 24/7 that index the site and download everything 50 times faster than a human which does munch it.

I'll look into it mater, cheers for the heads up!!!

Great work Andy. I assume the parts adds mean you are advertising Ebay adds on a pay per click type deal rather than actually selling parts on Ebay yourself?

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Originally Posted by NIZZBITS

Great work Andy. I assume the parts adds mean you are advertising Ebay adds on a pay per click type deal rather than actually selling parts on Ebay yourself?

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Yes thats correct Garry. Majority of the visitors on this site actually visit the used patrol part of the website not the forum believe or not so by putting PPC adds on the used car page and now with the parts page loaded should generate a lot of visitors to those pages and pay for the forum.