Option to disable off-site links from Traffic Exchange/Similar Topics
TheListener_ at 22h47
21
Feb
2011
This seems to be the only way we'll be ever listened to.
Forumotion has recently launched a beta feature called Traffic Exchange, currently available for English forums only. This new option on the AP displays a block of 6 links at the bottom of each topic if it's activated; these links lead to other website's topics (and topics in the same forum as well) that are considered similar because they have 1 or 2 similar keywords (even if they have nothing to do with it... just have a look below).
What I propose is to have a setting on the AP to disable off-site links (the ones that lead to external websites) and then, leave only the ones that link inside your forum. This is a great setting many softwares such as vBulletin and IPB have. It's quite helpful; it would reduce the number of people who post the same topic over and over again, it would enhance our SEO and help us, somehow, improve the crappy phpBB2 search we're currently tied up to.
It's simple... if you want (a maximum of) 2 or 3 spammers and rippers (aka the referrals this thing generates) to go over your site, your members to leave your site and move to a similar one and topics that teach you how to hack bank accounts, f*ck the member above, etc., vote no. If you care about your site's growth, professionalism, success and, more importantly, your members, vote yes.
Thanks.
Forumotion has recently launched a beta feature called Traffic Exchange, currently available for English forums only. This new option on the AP displays a block of 6 links at the bottom of each topic if it's activated; these links lead to other website's topics (and topics in the same forum as well) that are considered similar because they have 1 or 2 similar keywords (even if they have nothing to do with it... just have a look below).
What I propose is to have a setting on the AP to disable off-site links (the ones that lead to external websites) and then, leave only the ones that link inside your forum. This is a great setting many softwares such as vBulletin and IPB have. It's quite helpful; it would reduce the number of people who post the same topic over and over again, it would enhance our SEO and help us, somehow, improve the crappy phpBB2 search we're currently tied up to.
It's simple... if you want (a maximum of) 2 or 3 spammers and rippers (aka the referrals this thing generates) to go over your site, your members to leave your site and move to a similar one and topics that teach you how to hack bank accounts, f*ck the member above, etc., vote no. If you care about your site's growth, professionalism, success and, more importantly, your members, vote yes.
Thanks.
1 Guest, on 21/02/2011 at 22h59
Yes (:
2 lalalamda22, on 22/02/2011 at 05h03
I certainly agree that you should be able to do this. It is hard to have to add a filter to every offsite link you don't want.
3 Behaviour???, on 22/02/2011 at 19h29
I have voted in favour!
4 Arcknight, on 22/02/2011 at 20h10
Yes I this is a perfect idea. I would turn it on if they did that.
5 lalalamda22, on 22/02/2011 at 20h17
I thought there was a tutorial about how to do that.
6 TheListener_, on 22/02/2011 at 20h29
Thank you all for your votes. Keep them coming.
There isn't. Doing this would require having access to our databases, which we don't. According to what I've read, this is done through MySQL. The code was recently updated (yesterday) in order to be improved, appereantely. All the links suddenly changed to "0" and the address for all of them started with "0.0.0.0"... I don't think anybody noticed. It was like that for 5 minutes, moreless. After that, the number of links was changed from 5 to 6 and it seems now words inside the topic (the body of each message, I mean) are being used as keywords as well. Which is great. Some of the 'I have nothing to do with this' links disappeared, but it's still a little buggy.
This feature seems to be using a similar method than this page => http://www.skytopic.org/ which is known as 'Forumotion's Search Engine', which was never formally introduced, even though you can find the link on your APs. That website indexes the posts database of all Forumotion websites, just like the Similar Topics thing.
Turning off offsite links would require only indexing our forum's database, if I'm not mistaken. That could be easily done since each of our databases has a unique ID, which is used for backups too. I don't know MySQL nor I'm a coding expert, but I believe that shouldn't long to be done.
I'll keep my fingers crossed. In the meantime, please keep on voting if you agree with this suggestion.
lalalamda22 wrote:I thought there was a tutorial about how to do that.
There isn't. Doing this would require having access to our databases, which we don't. According to what I've read, this is done through MySQL. The code was recently updated (yesterday) in order to be improved, appereantely. All the links suddenly changed to "0" and the address for all of them started with "0.0.0.0"... I don't think anybody noticed. It was like that for 5 minutes, moreless. After that, the number of links was changed from 5 to 6 and it seems now words inside the topic (the body of each message, I mean) are being used as keywords as well. Which is great. Some of the 'I have nothing to do with this' links disappeared, but it's still a little buggy.
This feature seems to be using a similar method than this page => http://www.skytopic.org/ which is known as 'Forumotion's Search Engine', which was never formally introduced, even though you can find the link on your APs. That website indexes the posts database of all Forumotion websites, just like the Similar Topics thing.
Turning off offsite links would require only indexing our forum's database, if I'm not mistaken. That could be easily done since each of our databases has a unique ID, which is used for backups too. I don't know MySQL nor I'm a coding expert, but I believe that shouldn't long to be done.
I'll keep my fingers crossed. In the meantime, please keep on voting if you agree with this suggestion.
7 TheListener_, on 25/02/2011 at 01h49
Bump. Please vote before this feature gets out of beta. 
8 Brad38, on 25/02/2011 at 03h34
Voted yes of course!
9 Aspheric, on 25/02/2011 at 19h35
I think this is a great idea!
10 Saxaca, on 25/02/2011 at 21h04
I voted yes!
11 Social_King, on 26/02/2011 at 21h45
Yes Yes Yes!!!!
12 DustyBones, on 26/02/2011 at 22h03
Absolutely yes!
I don't use this feature because of this. I would use it if it only referred to topics in my forum.
I don't use this feature because of this. I would use it if it only referred to topics in my forum.
13 musket, on 26/02/2011 at 22h08
I voted Yes
14 YoshiGM, on 26/02/2011 at 22h28
Of course !!
This a great idea
This a great idea
15 TheListener_, on 05/03/2011 at 18h55
Bump. Anyone else would like to vote?
16 !_NICK_!, on 05/03/2011 at 22h05
Not sure. I will wait a while before I vote.
17 Cl/ass\iC, on 24/03/2011 at 17h20
VOTE YES! This new feature stink
18 ToTheFuture, on 27/03/2011 at 20h56
Yup! The new feature is sucky.
19 ASOF, on 17/04/2011 at 00h16
Totally agree, should have the option to just enable topics within your own forum not external links that have no relevance to your forums content!
20 Abhi09, on 17/04/2011 at 00h35
Voted... YES! XD
Similar topics
Guys, we run several forumns related to youth select sports. We have over 7000 registered parents that read and post.
We need the google "Similar Topics" boxes removed from our sites asap. Topics are directed to porn sites..
This needs to
I like this feature, but other web masters (almost) don't activate it, so my forums can be found at others. I want to promote my forum to have many members -> many topics. And I want to have a personalized domain, but also payment online is not secured
Dear users and members,
To improve the ranking and the audience of your forum, we inform you that we have now added a new feature entitled "Traffic exchange" which remains in Beta.
This new option will allow you to share traffic and
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21/02/2011 at 22h47 by "TheListener_"
