Why are there so many "off topic" posts?

[VaBeachGuy 12]

There have been people asking why there's so many "off topic" posts such as the NFL, CFL, NHL and NBA threads.

 

I thought I had mentioned this several months ago but maybe I didn't, but we now have an advertiser (their ads can be seen at the very bottom of every page). Those ads help offset the cost of running STF each month and keep us online.

 

Why did I accept advertising? It's simple, the cost of hosting the board, running the chat room, running the photo gallery and running the blogs each month is sufficient enough that without donations it made it harder to keep the board online. So the ads are there to help with those monthly costs.

 

So what does that have to do with the off topic posts? Well, in order to keep the advertiser happy and paying we need to have good traffic on the board. Those off topic threads generate traffic through the search engines (Yahoo, Google etc...). Each month when the advertiser gets the traffic report they see "X Amount" of traffic and are satisfied that their ads are available to enough people to make it worth their while to keep advertising on STF.

 

If you take a look at the sports forums you'll see that those threads average around 20 or 30 views each, which isn't alot but when added all together per month it amounts to a good bit of traffic (viewers).

 

 

So when you see those threads being posted just understand that they're there to help keep STARTREKFANS.NET funded and online.

[Kor37 9]

The only thing I see is "Weather Underground". Is that the advertiser?

[He Who Shall Not Be Named 2]

I thought it was because the "on-topic" posts are boring.

[VaBeachGuy 12]

The only thing I see is "Weather Underground". Is that the advertiser?

At the bottom of every page, not at the bottom of my post.

 

[VaBeachGuy 12]

Well in a sign of the economy we've lost our advertiser. They're hopeful that they'll be able to pick it back up at some point next year, as am I.