Why is CE's traffic down since last few days?

I think the issue started before my regular use of CE but i find it more amusing now itself and eager to have more changes in it to uplift it up

The_Big_K
How can you help?
CE survives on "content" and the more quality content we get on the site; the faster will be our recovery.

That is the crux of the matter. How?
I suggested elsewhere that each concerned CEan post at least one serious well thought out response or start a meaningful thread a week.
This has to be internalised by each.
Even one per month may push up content value.

Actually no 'extra' efforts are required. It'd even help if CEans participate in discussions and start new discussions to attract responses. We've earned a lot of goodwill over the time and I'm quite sure our journey back to the original traffic would be quicker. One easy way to track this is to notice the number of online visitors at any point of time; it'd be back to normal if it gets back to 800-1000 range. I'll of course keep everyone posted.

If you remember, I myself raised some serious doubts about the quality of some of the sticky pages in project section( Because that interests me more).

How do you distinguish CE with Seminar Projects or FE? The contents should be more technical, explanatory and matured in nature rather than generalized. I would any day prefer a 1000 words super content in 10 days rather than 1 content of 100 words every day.

Bounce Rate and Average Visit duration are the parameter that interest me the most. You absolutely have to put more contents in those threads that are getting you more traffic. By putting explanation to say project titles, one par post, you increase post count, two: you make your visitor look for more.

If I were a visitor and I arrived at your site looking for project topics, I would stop at the thread, will found topics and no description, would copy that content, paste in word. Leave your site. Go to Google, will search. Now if you also happen to have a page explaining that, Google will rank you high. So I am again going to come back to your site. Now I will know that you have good contents and I will search for more. If that does not happen, I would move ahead.

I prove my theory with your most replied and viewed thread over last one year "Creative Crazy Ideas.."
I raised my opinion, because like many others, I absolutely love CE. Think over this and I'm pretty sure that I would get a beer sooner than later for my insights😉

I agree with you; and I've been skipping working on the project ideas section for long; because though it's one of the top traffic pulling sections; I've never really 'wanted' it. 😖

I'm going to do a re-write of the things that would make the topics more useful for everyone.

A small update to prevent spam: We've now disabled the functionality for the new members to comment on profiles.

Oh ! This is bad NEWS,
But yes we can get back our position, No doubt we have to work hard for that.

I just saw that when I used to search RFM70 on google it used to show Crazyengineer link on Top 3 result and now its gone very down. 😔

Sad to hear this, but it might be true 😔

godfatherOh ! This is bad NEWS,
But yes we can get back our position, No doubt we have to work hard for that.

I just saw that when I used to search RFM70 on google it used to show Crazyengineer link on Top 3 result and now its gone very down. 😔

Yep, and several other links have gone down. I'm guessing we'll have to wait at least two more weeks to see the traffic getting back to normal. It's a big cost that we're paying for a stupid mistake. But I'm quite sure that we'll get back to normal very soon.

PS: If you search for 'Chat using RFM70', your thread lists #1.

SadaSad to hear this, but it might be true 😔

I already see some positive signal and the traffic bouncing back a little. That's definitely a good sign when we've a big festival season going on at the moment.

We learn from a lot of things, one good learning!

We are going to be so big in few years, so we learn and progress.

And yes , disabling the profile commenting is great! and yes we will get back to normal in few days for sure!

The_Big_KYep, and several other links have gone down. I'm guessing we'll have to wait at least two more weeks to see the traffic getting back to normal. It's a big cost that we're paying for a stupid mistake. But I'm quite sure that we'll get back to normal very soon.

PS: If you search for 'Chat using RFM70', your thread lists #1.



I already see some positive signal and the traffic bouncing back a little. That's definitely a good sign when we've a big festival season going on at the moment.

SIR it is purely not your single handed error

there are many places where we the other Members of CE have let you down

Now it is rebuilding time and here you have i know that for sure all the support you need from CEans

English-ScaredAnd yes , disabling the profile commenting is great! and yes we will get back to normal in few days for sure!

We all know CE has excelled through the lows I know that we will excel again when we come out this scenario

The_Big_KYep, and several other links have gone down.
I already see some positive signal and the traffic bouncing back a little. That's definitely a good sign when we've a big festival season going on at the moment.

We are not alone.
I saw this in another place. Seems to be a general malaise.

Maybe it is because I have been real busy of late, but, I have just noticed a lack of input from some of the regulars around here.

#-Link-Snipped-#

For us, it's the general lowering of traffic that's led to lowering of action. I already notice few positive things on the traffic side; but given the scale of 'errors' we've generated, I expect 10 more days before things get back to normal.

The_Big_KFor us, it's the general lowering of traffic that's led to lowering of action. I already notice few positive things on the traffic side; but given the scale of 'errors' we've generated, I expect 10 more days before things get back to normal.

recovery will and we all pray it is faster

We have start Wid

The_Big_KCEans have already noted that things are unusual on the site since last few days. We aren't getting our regular traffic and the activity seems to have gone down as well. I've spent several sleepless nights investigating the issue and finally have arrived at a conclusion. Two things happened -

1. We added a sidebar to all our thread pages.
2. I removed a LARGE number of tags (over 20k) from the site in one go.

These two things made search engines suspicious about our site because suddenly they started finding a new page (with sidebar) on the URLs they had indexed and there was a sudden rise in the 404 errors (Page Not Found). While the search engines are smart at ignoring the sidebar; I've arrived at a conclusion that mass deletion of tags was 'the mistake', I shouldn't have done.

I found out that a lot of people had linked to our 'tags' directly; which means the search engines spiders will now find an error page on those links; which is not a good sign; of course.
What Next?
Unfortunately, there's nothing we can restore and go forward. We've decided to go ahead with what we've been doing for long and hope that Google will restore us back in search rankings.
How can you help?
CE survives on "content" and the more quality content we get on the site; the faster will be our recovery. So feel free to start new discussions and participate more. I'll keep you updated about our recovery progress.
If you have questions, ask them below. I'll try my best to answer them.

hey k we also have to stop the "majnu" type users like i have seen in sada's(CE Lord) account one user named " #-Link-Snipped-# " asking hey u r online n all

Yes #-Link-Snipped-# we can limit some facilities to users below some criterial spot this can prevent unnecessary spamming and post irregularities

Seeing nearly 700 users today is a great sign that make all of us happy

Continue the Good work guys

The recovery is slow and I see the errors are going away. It'll take some time though. I'm positive that we'll start seeing good results by the end of this month.

I can somehow feel the recovery(Though I have the least idea about the errors) and I am sure that good results will peep in even before the end of this month.!

I will dump my view, To be honest I am not interested in pool of CEan... what I am interested is in activities going in CE, I am interested in large pool of "regular CEans" ... I see plenty of people joins CE, asks numerable of questions and then they will quit it. Also, most ; i mean 90% of registered CEans are leechers.
What I am interested is in productive sticky notes (I have made some which I will post once my midsem is over).

No straight hating, but i think the CEans with 2k+ posts should actively collaborate in their respective technical field.

The following words might induce some hate towards me,but i gotta spit it.
- Is it necessary to use sarcasm when someone asks simple question/help ? you were noob too once in your life, why dont you share your knowledge & help him/her grow ?

- Go to profile, select postings and check last 10 of your posts & think how many of 'em are productive and/or technical ? you will get idea where you really stand & the number games of total posts doesn't matters.

For Biggie,
Man, our community is dope but something is there that holding us back & you know whats that.
Also, Android,iOS & jar apps will help us in marketing CE. I know plenty of engineers searches term "engineer" in playstore for good application.So if android app is available, whenever they will search, "crazyengineers" app will pop at first and they will surely try which might help us getting more regular engineers.

No grudge on any CEan friend.
Pardon my bad language.
Peace.

No hate, buddy. We've never hated everyone. We're here to unite people.

Troll_So_HardI will dump my view, To be honest I am not interested in pool of CEan... what I am interested is in activities going in CE, I am interested in large pool of "regular CEans" ... I see plenty of people joins CE, asks numerable of questions and then they will quit it. Also, most ; i mean 90% of registered CEans are leechers.
What I am interested is in productive sticky notes (I have made some which I will post once my midsem is over).

That's always the case. Same thing happens with Wikipedia. <1% are actual contributors. People come to the site to 'consume' content. I recently met few people who told me they visit CE regularly to keep updated. I asked them why they don't contribute and they've had no answer. I think we'll have to live with it.

Troll_So_HardNo straight hating, but i think the CEans with 2k+ posts should actively collaborate in their respective technical field.

The following words might induce some hate towards me,but i gotta spit it.
- Is it necessary to use sarcasm when someone asks simple question/help ? you were noob too once in your life, why dont you share your knowledge & help him/her grow ?

I personally am on the way to decimate the sarcasm in my posts - wherever it existed. It's at the 0+ level at the moment; but I'm attaining 0 right now!

Okay, the only posts that look sarcastic are the responses to 'noob' questions, right? Following things happen:-

1. A poorly asked question remains orphan. No one notices, no one replies.
2. A noob question, but asked properly gets answered.
3. A noob question, gets gets basic advice like "Please refer the textbook".

The thing is, noob questions have been repelling the 'experts' away from the site and that's what we seriously don't want to happen. A ton of noob questions has given this site as a 'homework help' website where students ask questions and experts reply.

We'll have to keep a balance of such questions! Maybe we'll have to form a sub-forum under each section.

Troll_So_Hard- Go to profile, select postings and check last 10 of your posts & think how many of 'em are productive and/or technical ? you will get idea where you really stand & the number games of total posts doesn't matters.

We used to play the post count game in the initial days; but we don't pay attention to it anymore. As I said, we're in the process of revamping the whole titles system and may make it purely 'manual' or 'likes' based. But the 'likes' system has been abused too. 😀

Would appreciate feedback / ideas on how to go about it.

Troll_So_HardFor Biggie,
Man, our community is dope but something is there that holding us back & you know whats that.
Also, Android,iOS & jar apps will help us in marketing CE. I know plenty of engineers searches term "engineer" in playstore for good application.So if android app is available, whenever they will search, "crazyengineers" app will pop at first and they will surely try which might help us getting more regular engineers.

No grudge on any CEan friend.
Pardon my bad language.
Peace.

Ok, for the time being, we'll have to rely on a third-party android app. I hope our mobile style makes entry soon so that we can control the user experience. I'll start looking for the apps.

Troll_So_Hardi mean 90% of registered CEans are leechers.

That's true 😀 But I want to contribute to this forum even after the graduation 😀

Right now, I'm learning... After a 1 year, I'll be here and there, everywhere on this forum, posting answers like you 😛

People come to the site to 'consume' content. I recently met few people who told me they visit CE regularly to keep updated. I asked them why they don't contribute and they've had no answer.

Is not that how businesses run? 'Consumers' have demands that are met by the suppliers.
One should be grateful at being given an opportunity to contribute to a consumer needing it.
As the Bible says: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive'.
In the final analysis the giver gets more from the interaction than the receiver.

#-Link-Snipped-# all forums suffer the same problem

Biggie

one advice a new feature of Remove post can be given to some regular users so that when they find Irrelevant questions or HW based questions they can send a warning to the poster the more the Warnings they get the more likely are they to be kicked out

Also my pal try to remove the accounts of users trying to use this place as HW ground

jeffrey samuel#-Link-Snipped-# all forums suffer the same problem

Biggie

one advice a new feature of Remove post can be given to some regular users so that when they find Irrelevant questions or HW based questions they can send a warning to the poster the more the Warnings they get the more likely are they to be kicked out

There are many possibilites for it to be misused. These are one of the several things which are best left with the MODS to work with. I have a suggestion, why don't we create a quick search feature like google, so when we type a question to create a thread, a search result appears if it's already posted or similar to some previous threads(This may reduce repetition). This might be helpful in the further years as CE definitely grows on and becomes bigger and better.We can also have a quick search bar to facilitate quicker navigation.!

There are many possibilites for it to be misused. These are one of the Several things which are best left with the MODS to work with

that is the only reason why I said only "REGULAR USERS"

I never defined them pal

The_Big_KNo hate, buddy. We've never hated everyone. We're here to unite people.

Ok, for the time being, we'll have to rely on a third-party android app. I hope our mobile style makes entry soon so that we can control the user experience. I'll start looking for the apps.

Hi troll, as big_K said we are here to unite engineers and not to hate anyone.

Big_k had appointed community leaders, even i have applied for it. since am a regular blogger and forum guy. But he had not opted me for that position. Possibly there could be several reasons for him not opting me. And later after 45 days , he had closed the community leaders concept itself. But i dont hate anyone, also nobody here hates me. 👍

Coming to android and ios app. Honestly our forums has free plugins like Tapatalk. While auto pushes the mobile user with the native app. And the browsing experience is cool. Only thing is we need to install it in our forum and also register our site with them under engineering category. Also you could try mobstac.com, which google is tied up and promoting with server provider in india under howtogomo website. Though i have tried it and found mobstac.com has not supported forum rss / xml feeds. But still it works perfectly works with all ios and android devices with google ad also.

Just wanted to post an update. A lot of expert webmasters have reviewed our website and have pointed me to the following two issues -

1. We've lot of aggregated content - which seriously is disliked by search engines.

K: I don't agree. We do have content contributed by members that's been scrapped from other websites; but the top ranking threads aren't copied from anywhere.

2. We've near-empty / void discussions; which leaves no content for the search engines to index and rank.

K: I somewhat agree. We really need to build solid discussions for us to gain our traffic back.

The_Big_K2. We've near-empty / void discussions; which leaves no content for the search engines to index and rank.

This is what bothers me most. Is this because a large number of threads started are not interesting enough for a general discussion?
Are they too involved to elicit a reasonable response?
Are they not technical enough for more number of technical people to contribute?
Probably each CEan should introspect and come up with individual improvements to the tone.

I disagree, I don't think we have any copied contents. If any CEan asks easy basic questions then fo shizzle ma whizzle the content will be the same.

Eg: If someone asks what is inductor then almost in every forum we will get similar answers.

I think you are too interested in quantity rather than quality of CEans.

Here's the thing, purge accounts that have less than 10 posts. I bet 70k accounts will get deleted. What I mean is this numbers of engineers we have don't matter.

You won't believe me sirji but I am approaching every skilled guy in my college and telling them about CE.
I am not sparing any intelligent girl too.... Even though they think I am over smart or or player (yea I heard them back bitching.... It sucks, but I ignore them & keep moving ) I try to get "skilled engineers".
My next aim is targeting the faculty ;-)

We don't want 1000k engineers, we need only a thousand who interacts everyday on technical topics.

PS : I am criticizing just because I love CE. Don't take it wrong way, please.

#-Link-Snipped-# : Yep, we need to work on this. Google's at it's own will to send traffic to the websites.

#-Link-Snipped-# : Every member has full right to criticize and we take it as 'suggestions' by CEans who love CE!

Now, we aren't interested in 'numbers' - but we continue to hold the accounts so that we can have a chance of getting those CEans back. We send everyone updates about latest activities once in a while and we do get CEans back.

It's got nothing to do with the overall traffic of the site.

Basic questions are welcome - but we need to build discussions around them. An in-depth discussion about topics is what we need so that every visitor to CE benefits.

The responses posted by some as answers are of real mess and many times I find it being out of the Context

Some start another discussion inside an on going discussion that is a serious concern

I advice that we can have a way of telling more in detail of how this operates and stuff like that to all newbies

I am with #-Link-Snipped-# in his concern purge idle accounts that will be of great help and also reduce unnecessary load on the servers

The idle accounts don't add any load to the server and removing them will only cause damage - lot of 404'd pages; we can't afford.

The_Big_KThe idle accounts don't add any load to the server and removing them will only cause damage - lot of 404'd pages; we can't afford.

404 is a horror. Best avoided. I have taken to looking at salvaging at least the least objectionable of these CE 'Idles'. Anu Mallik may help.

bioramani404 is a horror. Best avoided. I have taken to looking at salvaging at least the least objectionable of these CE 'Idles'. Anu Mallik may help.

I'm actually being very cautious about removing anything from the site for a long time. As long as it's not 'overloading' or hurting us; I'm not going to fix it. Not sure whether this approach is right or wrong; but it's the course that we're going to take.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed until we restore our traffic levels to what it was around the beginning of September.

There may be a different take on this. I am on various engineering fora. I find much worse situation in many even longer established ones of late. Many are hijacked by some regulars, who act like Prima Donnas and will not tolerate any others. Quite often a technical discussion degenerates into personal irrelevant discussions leading to serious members keeping a distance.
Intolerance, snide remarks and plain bad language is not at all uncommon. Thankfully CE is free of all such.

As Swamy Chinmayananda said, "make haste slowly".

Troll_So_HardYou won't believe me sirji but I am approaching every skilled guy in my college and telling them about CE.
I am not sparing any intelligent girl too.... Even though they think I am over smart or or player (yea I heard them back bitching.... It sucks, but I ignore them & keep moving ) I try to get "skilled engineers".
My next aim is targeting the faculty ;-)

Don't just catch only the so called "skilled" or "intelligent" engineers. Try catching just "interested" engineers. They'll definitely become skilled after joining here.! However dumb(No Offense) they may be, if they are interested just ask them to join us.! 😀

vinod1993Don't just catch only the so called "skilled" or "intelligent" engineers. Try catching just "interested" engineers. They'll definitely become skilled after joining here.! However dumb(No Offense) they may be, if they are interested just ask them to join us.! 😀

True pal

Interest can generate a skill in any person He may be a dull head (No one here is dull except those who come here for their final year projects only )

But if a person of some interest pops here he will eventually draw skill and become a more real time engineer

Sorry to say this K more serious steps are required here it seems

In the past few days no much change is noted in the technical forums pal

It takes several days, I think it's better to focus on what we do here than worrying about traffic. Traffic will come even in absence of Google if people know about our site and we continue to offer great value. 😀

Yeah pal with a positive approach we can outwit it we are many and the problem is real a simple one and I don't think it will stand much longer against our combined efforts

How difficult is it to create a sub category in each category where all 'orphan' threads, which did not receive even a single response (For more than say a fortnight) can be parked?
I am sure that regulars will look in on these and respond if interesting or meaningful.

That's a good suggestion. I will look into it. Currently the best way to know whether there are any unanswered threads is to hit 'What's New' and that shows all the threads created/updated since user's last visit.

Yeah pal but the What's new segment also has recently updated threads and so unanswered posts go unnoticed in the whole lot but I would say a fortnight is a long time for a post to be kept before moving orphans into the new section

It would even suffice to move the threads from all forums into a common unanswered post section

A warm sight as traffic reaching newer heights over the past few weeks

jeffrey samuelA warm sight as traffic reaching newer heights over the past few weeks

Yep, I can confirm that. The recovery seems to have started. Can't wait to see the things getting back to their former glory and surpassing it. I'm sure CE will bounce back to the heights we haven't seen before! 👍

A Million likes BIGGIE WE RULE.

sorry guys. but net service has been scarce, since i started absenting myself.