SBF.net is now a year old!

[cbscreative]

Well, I'm starting this thread a few hours early, but this way it will be here for all the early morning readers (which I rarely am).

On August 6, 2009, SBF.net is one year old!!!

What a great year. As of this post, we have 778 members, 1542 threads, and 19,900 posts (19,901 after I submit this). Almost 20,000 posts folks!

And the best part is, the quality is exceptional. Vangogh does an outstanding job of cleaning up spam. He does so well that Kristine and I stand in awe, so this is my chance to acknowledge him publicly. The members here deserve a lot of credit too. It's not just numbers, it's real content that is useful. I'm sure many people have been helped, and I am pleased at how well we have done.

Happy Anniversary everyone! Let the festivities begin.

[vangogh]

You beat me to it. I was going to start the same thread tomorrow morning when it was official.

I wanted to say thanks to everyone here. Look at the numbers Steve posted above. Those are some pretty good numbers, especially at a time when most people are saying forums are a thing of the past. We all proved that isn't true and we've been building a nice home here. I've been watching the post count for the last month and hoping we'd hit 20,000, but 19,900 is still good and I'm sure I've deleted a few hundred spam posts over the year.

Thanks for the compliment on the cleanup Steve. It's most just checking in every few hours even if I don't post. The best part is catching the spammers while they're still registering.

I'll echo what Steve said about the quality of the content. As I'm writing this we have 19,906 posts and 1,543 threads. That's almost 13 posts per thread (12.9 to be more precise) Go look around at other forums and check their posts/thread average. It's going to be a lot less. We get good conversations going and we keep them going.

We also do it in a civil manner. Sure we disagree at times and at other times that disagreement is probably even a little heated, but I think overall we respect each other, enjoy each other's company, and genuinely want to help each other succeed.

So congrats everyone. Let's hope the next year is even better.

Now for the party. I have several cases of virtual champagne and virtual beer. I'm staring at a virtual liquor cabinet that is filled with everything you can imagine. Drink up (virtually of course) and let's get this party started.

[KristineS]

Wow, it's been a year already!

I have to echo what Steve said regarding Vangogh as the spam assassin. He leaves very little for the rest of us to do.

I'd also like to second (or third) the thanks to all the members here. We have a great group, all of whom are ready to share what they know and are able to have a civil discussion and to disagree without getting snarky or mean. Those abilities make this forum a great place to be and a terrific resource.

Happy first birthday to us. I can't wait to see where year #2 takes us.

[Evan]

Amazing that it has been a year... It's been very successful, and I'm sure many more will continue to come!

Thanks for all of your hard work to the A-team trio.

[ArcSine]

Happy Anniversary and many congrats, gang! You've put together a terrific forum, and it's obvious you've poured a ton of hard work into it.

Cheers, and congratulations!

[Spider]

Super job, everyone! SBF moved to the top of my list of Discussion Fora a couple of months ago and is my favorite place on the 'net.

Keep up the good work!

[Blessed]

wow a year already! this is a great place to hang out... soon I'll have a project for everyone to critique!

[Business Attorney]

Others may be amazed it is a year already, but to me it seems like eons ago that we were struggling with the "other" forum. Everyone here has done a great job of making the missteps of the old forum a fading memory.

Congratulations!

[vangogh]

It's funny because I was just thinking about the other forum and you're right it does seem like a long time since we had to deal with what was going on there. Still hard to believe it's only been a year here though.

Thanks all for the congrats.

[lav]

Congratulations guys this truly is one of the better forums around. Just knowing that someone is going to read your post and respond to it makes it a great place to be! A couple of weeks ago I ventured over to the old forum for the first time in ages and sent a PM to the admins about getting my signature to work....still waitng for a response from them. I know here if I sent a PM here i would get a quick response from someone who sincerely wants to help and that makes all the difference.

[vangogh]

Good luck on getting a response. The last time I checked the old forum the admins hadn't logged in for several months.

[SteveC]

Congrats... you're all obviously doing a fantastic job.

Thank you for all the hard work.

[Logan]

A tip of the hat and congrats!

[vangogh]

Thanks Chris. Still hard for me to believe it's been a year. I take it things are well at SmallBusinessBrief?

[Logan]

Yes, doing very well. Probably the biggest change we've seen from a year ago is that many of the advertisers who were small ended their advertising. We just celebrated our 5 year mark, so I can definitely relate to this thread in how time flies in some ways but in others it doesn't. :)

[vangogh]

I can understand about the advertisers given how the economy has been. Wow you guys are at 5 years. Congrats. I guess I should have realized that. I think I joined about 4+ years ago.

Oh I should have linked to you guys above. I'll correct that now

Small Business Ideas Forum (http://www.smallbusinessbrief.com/forum/) - covers a lot of the same topics we cover here and are also a great group of people. Naturally I hoe you'll all stay here, but if you need a forum fix this would be another great forum to check out.

[Logan]

Cheers for that! We've always believed there is plenty of room in this world for more than one forum. Although my time is often taken over there, like you, I have enjoyed visiting the group here (and previously at the other place). Keep it up!

[vangogh]

I believe the same. Shortly after I joined the old version of this forum I joined your side of things. For awhile I was able to keep up posting at both (as well as a couple of webmaster forums), but eventually I couldn't devote all that time to forum posting. I'd already become a moderator at the old SBF so it seemed to more logical place to be active.

I've always liked Small Business Brief though, and have great respect for Robert and Jenn and everyone else who works on the site, including yourself.

My hope is that in time the old SBF will slip out of the search results and you'll move up to fill their place and we'll slip in right behind you. :)

[Logan]

Well, if anything it does reveal google's inability to distinguish quality and the role time plays in their algorithm ;)

[vangogh]

I've been thinking that too. The old forum has been little more than a cesspool for spam for about a year now and yet still Google sees it as the top small business forum. I understand why. They've been around longer and I think they still have the most links pointing to them, but still the places is not a good result anymore and it hasn't been for a long time.

[cbscreative]

I can't even remember how long it's been since I checked out the old neighborhood. I find I rarely even think about them any more.

What's sad about them still ranking is someone looking for a good forum will be very disappointed. Before they went down the toilet, I know many of the members there found them using Google. Though it was over 4 years ago when I joined, that's how I found them too.

Eventually, I think we are destined to outrank them. Their age advantage won't last forever with the complete neglect they've given it. That does expose a serious flaw in Google's algorithm just as Chris stated.

[vangogh]

I think maybe once a month I pop over there out of curiosity and to see if anything has improved. It never seems to. Still mostly spam with an occasional legit post. The owner and moderators never sign in. It's pretty clear we made the right move to leave.

[KristineS]

I haven't been over there once since this forum started up and I don't miss it. Of course, I'd pretty much opted out of the old forum long before, so maybe I am less predisposed to miss it anyway.