Bitcointalk is not doing well in Alexa rank because of the Merit system

[Yourhomeboy]

I took a look at this forum's rank on Alexa, it is not good enough; provided that Content is king which is a big tenet in this forum, and why merits were integrated for users who post quality content no doubt articles from this forum rank very fast on google but the number of visitors to this forum has reduced and it affected the ranking of this website.

In 2018 according to Wikipedia, this forum ranked 900 on Alexa Globally.

Later in 2018, it was announced that users without any merit will be demoted to Newbie regardless of their ranks. During this period, so many users left this forum and most accounts were sold out for a couple of dollars. People were desperately in need of bitcointalk accounts with merits so they won't be a Newbie and also for their several businesses in the service thread. (You won't trade with a newbie)

Now in 2020, the forum ranked number 11,525 in February and at 22,845 this month this shows that our forum is doing well in good content but performs very bad in traffic, some threads scare new visitors away, just like this one https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5220580.0

what is the actual aim of making the merit system very hard for users? This will scare some away and those who are not good at writing, it means they don't belong here?

An internet forum where people come to learn and share information on bitcoin is not just a personal forum for some users that have a good rank to suggest how difficult the forum will be. Also, it is clear that most threads from the newbies are not given much attention because of how they structured their article.

If you noticed well, you will see that the signature campaigns are getting closed because companies don't get exactly the kind of traffic they used to see.

The forum is now difficult not only for newbies but for investors who came as newbies and left because they couldn't understand the forum better. I like this section "beginners and guide" but I didn't discover it as a newbie.

I will say that this forum is easy if you have worked hard on it and it's part of you, But very difficult for freshers because of how old members treat them with merit.

What is the reason behind holding a Smerit without giving it out? Most of them will waste or expire. If we put more energy on how we make good articles and also make it easier to harbor visitors that turned to members. This forum will rank as before and we will get enough people that will make use of our signatures for adverts.

I know our moderators are working hard to reduce spam and scam here. But I will encourage users to make here fun, we are in a war forum of smart Alecks that counter every single thread that is published. How do you expect better learning if they are no fun going on here?

looking at the rank of this site do you think Satoshi will be happy? We can build a forum as famous as bitcoin.

link to Alexa rank on bitcointalk.org

https://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/bitcointalk.org
rank for 2018 below
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcointalk#cite_note-alexa-1

[JeromeTash]

Have you considered the Alexa Rank before 2017.
IMO 2017 and 2018 were years when there was so much spam and SCAM ICO bounties that attracted lots of spambots to make bounty reports here. This made it look like the forum was registering so many forum users and yet it was just bots and account farms.

What use is it to have thousands of daily visitors that are just bots amidst a forum filled up with spam? 

[mk4]

Alright here we go again.

what is the actual aim of making the merit system very hard for users? This will scare some away and those who are not good at writing, it means they don't belong here?

An internet forum where people come to learn and share information on bitcoin is not just a personal forum for some users that have a good rank to suggest how difficult the forum will be.

What are you talking about? They can freely post just like anyone as long as they're not spamming. The merit system just makes it difficult for people to go here solely for bounty campaigns, and definitely to make it hard for them to account farm.

Also, it is clear that most threads from the newbies are not given much attention because of how they structured their article.

So a badly made topic didn't gain attention. What's your point? Rank is irrelevant in this case.

The forum is now difficult not only for newbies but for investors who came as newbies and left because they couldn't understand the forum better. I like this section "beginners and guide" but I didn't discover it as a newbie.

Tell you what. A lot of the newbies aren't here to "invest". If they're only here for investing knowledge, they wouldn't even need to take note of their ranks. It's not like their rank is stopping them from investing, right?

I know our moderators are working hard to reduce spam and scam here. But I will encourage users to make here fun, we are in a war forum of smart Alecks that counter every single thread that is published. How do you expect better learning if they are no fun going on here?

So you think spam and account farms are "fun"?

looking at the rank of this site do you think Satoshi will be happy? We can build a forum as famous as bitcoin

LOL. You think Satoshi would be happy for Bitcointalk being a spam forum?


Ultimately, Bitcointalk surely did sacrifice some of it's traffic and activity, in exchange for better and more constructive conversations, which is a huge win in my book. Though, we don't even know to what extent of those traffic drop was actually from the merit system. You also need to take note of the actual decrease of interest in Bitcoin since the bull run of 2017.

If you like spam forums, go to the "the-forum-that-should-not-be-named" forum that once had a big signature campaign here.

P.S. I haven't seen a reasonable excuse for removing the merit system, ever since it was implemented. The complaints are really mostly from people who can't rank up themselves so they resort to complaining instead. Tell you what, if you're having a hard time ranking up, maybe do more studying.


EDIT: oh. no wonder you didn't know about the horrors of not having the merit system.

[Cnut237]

I took a look at this forum's rank on Alexa, it is not good enough

I don't think the overriding purpose of the forum is to achieve a high Alexa rank.

looking at the rank of this site do you think Satoshi will be happy?

No, I'd expect the rank would not elicit any emotional response, because it is utterly irrelevant.

[DdmrDdmr]

<…> Later in 2018, it was announced that users without any merit will be demoted to Newbie regardless of their ranks. <…>

Not all users were deranked back to Newbie. Only meritless Jr. Members, since all the ranks above had merits (earned or airdropped).

Now in 2020, the forum ranked number 11,525 in February and at 22,845 this month this shows that our forum is doing well in good content but performs very bad in traffic

There’s been a global pandemic in between. We should give that a fair share of the reason behind. Alexa does not measure traffic with consolidated certainty, but rather uses extrapolated data from a subset of users. In a pandemic such as this, the models can easily go adrift.

How does Alexa get its data?
Alexa has a large traffic data panel consisting of millions of people all over the world. Based on the data from this sample, Alexa estimates the number of visitors to all sites on the Internet. It’s a complicated calculation that involves correcting for biases as well as identifying and discarding fake or spam traffic. Our data scientists are the best in the business and they make sure the data we present is free of noise and non-human data, so you can make the best decisions for your business.

How is the Alexa Rank calculated?
Every day, Alexa estimates the average daily visitors and pageviews to every site over the past 3 months. The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews over the past 3 months is ranked #1. The site with the least is ranked somewhere around 30 million. If no one in our measurement panel visited a site over the past 3 months there is no rank at all for that site.

Note the recurrence of the term "estimate" in the above quote (https://blog.alexa.com/improving-your-alexa-rank/).

some threads scare new visitors away, just like this one  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5220580.0

Not many newcomers will visit Meta, and that thread is really a one-off (i.e. not a recurring idea).

What is the reason behind holding a Smerit without giving it out? Most of them will waste or expire.

Merits do not expire for anyone. Some Merit Source Merits may go unspent, but you can’t expect them to always spend them all (it’s a pretty selfless task, and time consuming). Sometimes, they need to resort to sprees of a kind to ease their burden …

[Jawhead999]

People were desperately in need of bitcointalk accounts with merits so they won't be a Newbie and also for their several businesses in the service thread. (You won't trade with a newbie)

No, I think people still want to trade with a newbie... especially if he accept using an escrow. Usually newbie didn't want to accepting escrow and didn't have have any reputation on his account, it's why people didn't want to trade with a newbie.

Now in 2020, the forum ranked number 11,525 in February and at 22,845 this month this shows that our forum is doing well in good content but performs very bad in traffic, some threads scare new visitors away, just like this one  https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5220580.0

This is only suggestion and has not been implemented yet on this forum, so this is incorrect reason if you think people will scared after read this thread.

If you noticed well, you will see that the signature campaigns are getting closed because companies don't get exactly the kind of traffic they used to see.

Are you sure about this? I think you should check service section once again. What about Chipmixer? Chipmixer was launch their campaign from 2017 and till now their haven't change the pay rate and the slots. According to last payment from Chipmixer is 4.07782635 BTC, do you think Chipmixer will keep paying around 4 BTC for signature campaign, If signature campaign in this forum is not have traffic and not profiting for them?

The forum is now difficult not only for newbies but for investors who came as newbies and left because they couldn't understand the forum better. I like this section "beginners and guide" but I didn't discover it as a newbie.

I will say that this forum is easy if you have worked hard on it and it's part of you, But very difficult for freshers because of how old members treat them with merit.

Please, never say Merit system is make difficult to newbies, mostly people joining this forum to get money only. What do you think if the newbies don't care about the rank and his purpose is want to discuss about bitcoin only? I believe they will never said merit system is make difficult for them. The purpose of merit system is to force members to create high quality post, reducing spam, and also reducing people want to get easy profit from here without learning bitcoin or forum.

looking at the rank of this site do you think Satoshi will be happy? We can build a forum as famous as bitcoin.

Do we should judge this sites based on Alexa rank? Satoshi is creator of bitcoin and this forum, so you should judge from bitcoin aspect too. Bitcoin is the king of cryptocurrency (always on top 1 even when bitcoin in major dump/downtrend), the most valuable and worthies from all cryptocurrency. Bitcoin survive for 10 years and still counting. Bitcointalk.org always on top 1 forum from other best cryptocurrency forum [1] [2]

[lovesmayfamilis]

The forum has so much interesting and competent information, which was not a few years ago. Beginners are open to all sections for their own understanding of any direction. As they say, there would be a desire. For merit, you need competent and useful posts. Yes, maybe for some it is at first difficult. But do not equate the forum to the competition for merit. Why forum information that does not bring any benefit? Or a bunch of plagiarism? Unique content is important. And the forum can be proud of this content.

[Yourhomeboy]

What are you talking about? They can freely post just like anyone as long as they're not spamming. The merit system just makes it difficult for people to go here solely for bounty campaigns, and definitely to make it hard for them to account farm.

You are getting wrong here. From what is said I mean how will a post that is not quality enough get a merit. Like you said "they can post as long as they're not spamming" some users are not like that, if they see they can't contribute they remain dormant. And for account farming how difficult does it look for a user with 150 Smerit to farm accounts on this forum?

So a badly made topic didn't gain attention. What's your point? Rank is irrelevant in this case

My point here is; Instead of ignoring the message I think some corrections can be made on that same thread for the OP to learn how to put more energy next time. At least knowing that people read their article can motivate them to write next time.

Tell you what. A lot of the newbies aren't here to "invest". If they're only here for investing knowledge, they wouldn't even need to take note of their ranks. It's not like their rank is stopping them from investing, right?

I know their rank won't stop them from investing. But then a few among the newbies are here to invest or watch how the forum works before they can unleash their purpose here. If care is not taken on them they are likely to leave if the forum is difficult to comprehend.

So you think spam and account farms are "fun"?

I didn't in any way think that way. What i am saying is that they are a lot of arguments in this forum.

They should be a better way than tightening the forum, I don't think not looking at the forum rank is a good idea. We have to look into it from a better angle.

[o_e_l_e_o]

Correlation doesn't equal causation. The reason the Alexa rank was so high in early 2018 was due to the preceding bull run. Everything was in the green. You could buy any useless scam token and still make a profit from it. The forum was overrun with bounty hunters, spammers, and scammers. There were new altcoins being launched every hour, and new bounty campaigns to go along with them. Thousands of accounts were created just to spam utter trash for the signature rewards. The death of 99.9% of these altcoins are what reduced the traffic to the forum, not the merit system.

Also, it is clear that most threads from the newbies are not given much attention because of how they structured their article.

Most threads from newbies aren't given much attention because they are either outright spam, have been discussed 100 times before, or they've just copy and pasted from other places (or even worse, tried to hide the fact they are copying and pasting by "summarizing" content they don't understand and introducing multiple errors).

If you noticed well, you will see that the signature campaigns are getting closed because companies don't get exactly the kind of traffic they used to see.

Good. The vast majority of signature campaigns just encourage spammers.

Instead of ignoring the message I think some corrections can be made on that same thread for the OP to learn how to put more energy next time. At least knowing that people read their article can motivate them to write next time.

This is completely the wrong attitude, and it's why most threads from newbies don't get any attention, as discussed above. New threads should be opened when you have something interesting the community will want to talk about. Not because you want to earn merit, or write an article, or attract attention to yourself, or gain motivation, etc. Too many newbies open too many useless new threads.

Your problem is that you view the forum's primary function as enabling people to earn via their signatures, and the merit system as a hurdle en route to that goal. You're wrong. The primary function of the forum is to encourage meaningful discussion, and the merit system supports that goal.

[bitmover]

What is the reason behind holding a Smerit without giving it out? Most of them will waste or expire. If we put more energy on how we make good articles and also make it easier to harbor visitors that turned to members. This forum will rank as before and we will get enough people that will make use of our signatures for adverts.

I know our moderators are working hard to reduce spam and scam here. But I will encourage users to make here fun, we are in a war forum of smart Alecks that counter every single thread that is published. How do you expect better learning if they are no fun going on here?

looking at the rank of this site do you think Satoshi will be happy? We can build a forum as famous as bitcoin.

This forum doesn't need a good Alexa rank, neither spammers paratising it.

This forum is a place for bitcoin discussions, project development to bitcoin related stuff, service promotion and community support.

This way it is useful for bitcoin, which is the reason for thi forum to exist.

[mk4]

You are getting wrong here. From what is said I mean how will a post that is not quality enough get a merit.

? ? ? You're pretty much asking like "how can I get promoted in my job if I don't perform well?". Merits are for quality posts in the first place. That doesn't make sense in the slightest.

Like you said "they can post as long as they're not spamming" some users are not like that, if they see they can't contribute they remain dormant. And for account farming how difficult does it look for a user with 150 Smerit to farm accounts on this forum?

A LOT harder. They'd need to have the 150 sMerit to start with, to be able to abuse it.

My point here is; Instead of ignoring the message I think some corrections can be made on that same thread for the OP to learn how to put more energy next time. At least knowing that people read their article can motivate them to write next time.

So you're point is? Again, rank is irrelevant in this case. Good post? It gets some attention. Bad post? It doesn't get much attention. REGARDLESS OF RANK.

I know their rank won't stop them from investing. But then a few among the newbies are here to invest or watch how the forum works before they can unleash their purpose here. If care is not taken on them they are likely to leave if the forum is difficult to comprehend.

But the forum isn't difficult to comprehend though? It might be if ranking up is your main focus, which shouldn't be the main focus in the first place. Bitcointalk is a forum. A place where like-minded people talk about Bitcoin. Not a place to primarily make money.

They should be a better way than tightening the forum, I don't think not looking at the forum rank is a good idea. We have to look into it from a better angle.

It's already proven to be a good idea though. LOL. If you think there are better solutions, go ahead. Name them.

[Yourhomeboy]

Have you considered the Alexa Rank before 2017.
IMO 2017 and 2018 were years when there was so much spam and SCAM ICO bounties that attracted lots of spambots to make bounty reports here. This made it look like the forum was registering so many forum users and yet it was just bots and account farms.

What use is it to have thousands of daily visitors that are just bots amidst a forum filled up with spam? 

Do you know how pogosticking can affect a site rank. I don't think with the nature of this forum today will stop the bots from coming and also account farming is still on the rise. Which is one of the reasons the merit system is not favorable to the newbies in this forum. Come to think of it, one person having more than 10 accounts. Once the merit source to those accounts gets Smerits the merit goes to their personal accounts first before giving it out to other users as well the merit might have finished.

[crwth]

I think it's not bad to consider having a better rank with Alexa because it can boost the economy of the marketplace here. It's not worth depending on your entire site but if you can achieve better, why not? But the verdict is that it's not the end of the forum if you don't get a high ranking there. It's also not the measure of success. It's not that important but okay to get a good rank.

Depending on the amount of post is just spam altogether. I would choose quality over quantity anytime.

[The Cryptovator]

Very long post, can't quote one by one since I am on mobile phone. First thing is this forum isn't anything related to financial investments or something similar that investors will check Alexa rank before invest. This forum has created for discussion regarding bitcoin and related stuff. So either merits system is exist or removed you will able to make discussion. No one will prevent you from it. So why you are worried about merits?

Whoever left this forum for merit system they were just a spammer. They never contributed themselves for forum. So who care even they left or stay? If you are a good contributor and good poster on this forum you don't need to worry about merits.

So for forum, traffic or Alexa rank isn't much important. The most important part for this forum is healthy discussion.

[Yourhomeboy]

It's already proven to be a good idea though. LOL. If you think there are better solutions, go ahead. Name them.

The best solution to this problem is to increase the number of bot moderators that will be available to check illicit moves on the forum and ban the accounts. Falling behind in ranks, from the age of the forum we may end up being the only users in this forum. Or does it mean you don't want more people to come and learn from the millions of posts in the forum?

[mk4]

The best solution to this problem is to increase the number of bot moderators that will be available to check illicit moves on the forum and ban the accounts. Falling behind in ranks, from the age of the forum we may end up being the only users in this forum.

So the moderators ban them, and then what? They're free to create new accounts that they can again grow just through making 1 post daily to earn activity points. This is why the merit system works, because even if they create a million accounts, it wouldn't matter if they aren't capable of earning merits

Or does it mean you don't want more people to come and learn from the millions of posts in the forum?

You do realize that people can freely come here and learn from the existing posts all they want, like right now, right? Heck they don't even need an account.

[Yourhomeboy]

Very long post, can't quote one by one since I am on mobile phone. First thing is this forum isn't anything related to financial investments or something similar that investors will check Alexa rank before invest. This forum has created for discussion regarding bitcoin and related stuff. So either merits system is exist or removed you will able to make discussion. No one will prevent you from it. So why you are worried about merits?

Whoever left this forum for merit system they were just a spammer. They never contributed themselves for forum. So who care even they left or stay? If you are a good contributor and good poster on this forum you don't need to worry about merits.

So for forum, traffic or Alexa rank isn't much important. The most important part for this forum is healthy discussion.

I think today is my first time of seeing a site that doesn't care about their Alexa ranking. Hmm, like you said "quality discussion" without enough readers isn't it a waste of information? How about the people that will be searching for this forum and what they will see is other crypto blogs that pop out on search engine.

Whoever left this forum for merit system they were just a spammer

you can't be sure of that. Because you didn't leave this forum from the start doesn't mean you should show less care about the users that left the forum. I'm not worried about the merits, I'm worried about the people that left the community because they got no merit after all the time they spent on the forum.

You can't predict the exact reason why some people leave the forum. Most of them are not here to spam. I know how difficult it is to get to the top in this forum. That is one of the reasons people leave here, and most of them don't surf here enough to know that they is a sub-forum for their respective countries and continent that can welcome them and make them feel at home.

We need proper guide that's all

[Yourhomeboy]

The best solution to this problem is to increase the number of bot moderators that will be available to check illicit moves on the forum and ban the accounts. Falling behind in ranks, from the age of the forum we may end up being the only users in this forum.

So the moderators ban them, and then what? They're free to create new accounts that they can again grow just through making 1 post daily to earn activity points. This is why the merit system works, because even if they create a million accounts, it wouldn't matter if they aren't capable of earning merits

Or does it mean you don't want more people to come and learn from the millions of posts in the forum?

You do realize that people can freely come here and learn from the existing posts all they want, like right now, right? Heck they don't even need an account.

I know they can read as much as they want but can't contribute or ask questions on the topic of their choice, sorry I wasn't referring to those kind of people that don't have an account with us.

Don't you think that they is a way to track an already banned user that created another account just to come and spam again?

[mk4]

I know they can read as much as they want but can't contribute or ask questions on the topic of their choice, sorry I wasn't referring to those kind of people that don't have an account with us.

Well, they can freely create an account right now too and freely contribute or ask questions. People are already doing that regardless of rank. Again, rank doesn't matter.

Don't you think that they is a way to track an already banned user that created another account just to come and spam again?

People can use Tor/VPNs/Proxies, and some people's IP addresses are dynamic.

[Rikafip]

An internet forum where people come to learn and share information on bitcoin is not just a personal forum for some users that have a good rank to suggest how difficult the forum will be.

I don't see how any newbie member can't learn or share information. What's stopping  newbie members to be productive? They can't make topics, they can't  write posts? Or you think that someone would miraculously be better member if he is able to rank up easier?

I will say that this forum is easy if you have worked hard on it and it's part of you, But very difficult for freshers because of how old members treat them with merit.

Nonsense. There is an abundance of merit ready to be shared to newbies. Just check The future of Bitcointalk: Low Ranking Top Merit earners in the past 30 days and you will see how many low level members can earn bunch of merit in a month, and you will be surprised. If anything, there is lack of quality new members. Naturally, some will rank up faster than others, but everyone that is genuine, patient and came here to learn&share  will rank up in reasonable time frame.

You can't predict the exact reason why some people leave the forum. Most of them are not here to spam. I know how difficult it is to get to the top in this forum. That is one of the reasons people leave here, and most of them don't surf here enough to know that they is a sub-forum for their respective countries and continent that can welcome them and make them feel at home.

And how is that fault of merit system, that people don't take time to properly learn all forum features, boards, rules and regulations?