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Thread: How did this site get so big?
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04-08-2004, 06:08 AM #1Disabled
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How did this site get so big?
How does a website like this grow to such an enormous size? There are a lot of websites that are primarily forums, and have thousands of posts a day. Is there some secret to growing these sites? It is not worth paying to advertising such a site because, yet a lot of seemingly obscure sites have reached large proportions in 1-2 years. Just curious.
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04-08-2004, 06:19 AM #2Web Hosting Master
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Re: How did this site get so big?
Originally posted by SsZERO
How does a website like this grow to such an enormous size?• WLVPN.com • NetProtect owned White Label VPN provider •
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04-08-2004, 06:35 AM #3Disabled
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I came here from a link on php.net, i imagine many other people did as well.
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04-08-2004, 06:37 AM #4Web Hosting Master
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same here ub3r i only came across this site because of php.net.
John Heslop
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04-08-2004, 09:11 AM #5Web Hosting Evangelist
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Well every forum's asset is its members, and obviously WHT has that...with lots of knowledgable members willing to share. When you get really big, you reach the point you dont need to advertise anymore people will just signup themselves
Shawn Ho
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04-08-2004, 11:42 AM #6Web Hosting Master
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One factor that helped WHT begin to grow, long before the php.net link was in place, was simply timing -- a few years ago it filled a unique niche; there weren't many other hosting-related forums.
By the time others started springing up, WHT was already well-established as having the largest userbase and a good representation of hosting companies. The head start was important, and the membership built over the first couple of years meant that ad sales were there at the point the attempt was first made to sell them; that provided money for marketing at places like php.net (and good marketing decisions helped things along), and the momentum keeps building.
Of course without high quality content and good moderation it wouldn't happen anyway, but sometimes all of the pieces just fall into place.Last edited by JayC; 04-08-2004 at 11:46 AM.
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04-08-2004, 12:22 PM #7WHT Addict
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I came to this site through word of mouth.
Forums seem to grow a lot based on that and how relevant/useful they are to the topics they are meant for. Webhostingtalk is a great resource for webhosts, and happened to attract a lot of 'influencers' in the industry (I would hazzard a guess the link on PHP.net had a lot to do with that). You rope those people, and the herds will follow.Not only do I think for myself, I AM myself
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04-08-2004, 01:14 PM #8Web Hosting Master
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Actually, I found WHT through Google... and since it's on the first page of results for "web hosting", it wasn't really that hard to find.
When I first came here, I just read the advertisements for hosting, but then I realized how many friendly people were here, so I joined up.
You can seriously get like any question answered here on WHT, not just about hosting. I think that's what makes it so cool and why people keep coming back.
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04-08-2004, 01:20 PM #9Web Hosting Master
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Word of mouth for me... CrazyTech referred me. Why doesn't WHT allow a referral thing like Vbulletin has?
Kerry Jones
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04-08-2004, 01:46 PM #10Web Hosting Evangelist
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Originally posted by JayC
Of course without high quality content and good moderation it wouldn't happen anywayShawn Ho
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04-08-2004, 06:11 PM #11Web Hosting Master
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I came here because I was searching for information on web hosting control panels, when I wanted to get one for my servers.
Sites like this get big because of bribes... i receive my monthly check, don't you?
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04-09-2004, 02:47 PM #12Aspiring Evangelist
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word of mouth here. forums tend to grow exponentially because as membership increases, more people talk about it
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04-09-2004, 03:16 PM #13Web Hosting Master
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Found this site on accident through another free hosting forum a while back myself. Kerry was among quite a few I reffered here.
Honestly WHT is what it is today in terms of size because of the reasons JayC said. It was in the right place at the right time. There simply weren't any other of these type forums around at the time, and because of that WHT got a strong head start.
This can be applied to almost any type of sucessful site. Sure, offering lots of neat interactive features are great, but what really matters is does it fill a niche that isn't occupied by countless other websites. There's no secret about it, maybe just a little luck.Denver Hunter | Webmaster | Library of Biz - Side Hustles, Small Business & Professional Growth
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04-11-2004, 03:13 PM #14Newbie
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Being a member of iNet Interactive doesn't hurt either. They link to this site from Hotscripts with a "latest posts" section which get a Kabillion hits per day. So of course their traffic is going to be crazy.
That's what I meant in an earlier post when I said I need t build a network. Thr traffic grows exponentially. The more interesting sites you have, the more loyal fans.
Are we fans? lolLatest Blog: Flash Game Sites - Get More Traffic NOW!
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04-11-2004, 04:25 PM #15Retired ***ulator
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I found it through word of mouth way back in 2001, although I didn't sign up til 03. WHT is like the gold standard of webhosting talk type sites.
73's, Kim
Everything happens for a reason I make up.
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04-11-2004, 04:41 PM #16Web Hosting Evangelist
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I found it on http://www.tweakers.net which is a pretty large site + forum in the Netherlands (if iam correct about 2 million visitors a day on site + forum). So that probably explains the dutch peoples here
I just looked for hosting when i first came here but just found the rest of the forum to be very usefull and fun.Last edited by ic3d; 04-11-2004 at 04:45 PM.
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04-11-2004, 05:01 PM #17Web Hosting Guru
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After Starting My own company I searched for forums where they allowed you to make offers of your services. I found this one by google I think, and then registered and made my offer. IT quickly got to page two and so I checked out the rest of the community and got hooked.
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