The long story about automotive forums

[SaabBoon]

I myself noticed quite a few changes which really started to annoy me.. But it seems like bigger stuff was going on that I am unaware of?

Edit: Just saw an 11 page thread on SC.. Anyone care to offer a condensed version summary?

[stamonkey]

I only read part of it before I registered here. But the short of it is SC was sold, they added lots of ads, making money off of us poor individuals only looking to help each other out with our Saabs.

[nordwulf]

• Paul sold SaabCentral to VerticalScope, a company that owns 100s of forums
• Paul ignored offers from members/mods to assist and take over SaabCentral
• Many members feel they were sold to the highest bidder
• VS admins weren't prepared to deal with the outspoken Saab community at SC
• SC is plastered with ads
• Many members make a big issue of the T&C (they haven't officialy posted yet) and don't like their content will be used for commercial exploitation by a big corporation.

Not the long story you asked for but more details can be found here:
http://saabworld.net/f16/alternative-saab-central-3/

[SaabBoon]

Ahh, thanks for the cliff notes.

... turning cheers into ruby tuesdays basically.

Just as I expected, subaruforester.org is a member of VS as well. And just the "feeling" of the forum bothered me to no end. If you make a link to tirerack.com to show some tires you ordered, they re-write the link to go to their ad partners
BS like that makes me want to throw my computer through a window.

[nordwulf]

Yeah, the long story is, well, really long.

vBulletin recently included SkimLinks in their latest version. Don't worry, you won't see it show up here on SW.
vBulletin 4.1.2 with Skimlinks - Blogs - vBulletin Community Forum

vBulletin was purchased by InternetBrands a while ago, another mega forum company like VerticalScope. It's all a big conspiracy!

VerticalScope

• 25 Million Unique Visitors Monthly
• 225+ Million Pageviews Monthly
• 300+ Owned and Operated Web Sites

InternetBrands

Total Unique Visitors: 72 million
Total Page Views: 660 million

Automotive forums:
http://www.internetbrands.com/our-brands/automotive/

[Katsura]

We are a closely knit community, I think the idiots at VC won't realise what they did is dropping stone on their on foot.

Like I said, corporate idiots.

[SaabBoon]

We are a closely knit community, I think the idiots at VC won't realise what they did is dropping stone on their on foot.

Like I said, corporate idiots.

Well they paid for a pre-search engine optimized site. SC will turn up for a TON of google search results relating to saab questions and problems, several thousands of hits per day, plastered with advertisements.

Its been around for ages and has several thousand backlinks... Worth a TON of money to the right owners. If the original SC owners knew how to monetize it better they never would have sold it... But the same problem would still exist and we'd come here.

[SpecialTool]

Some are saying the number of guests online at SC has grown dramatically since VS took over ... suggesting that some of those guests are VS bots artificially boosting ad clicks.

VS wouldn't be that stupid would they? That sort of chicanery could bring down their business if uncovered.

Anyhoo, it's great to see all the new blood at this sleepy little site. Hope y'all stay around and build this into something great.

[JLausch]

most likely people from other forums checking the site out with all the drama.

[Burnsside42]

Well they paid for a pre-search engine optimized site. SC will turn up for a TON of google search results relating to saab questions and problems, several thousands of hits per day, plastered with advertisements.

Its been around for ages and has several thousand backlinks... Worth a TON of money to the right owners. If the original SC owners knew how to monetize it better they never would have sold it... But the same problem would still exist and we'd come here.

Some are saying the number of guests online at SC has grown dramatically since VS took over ... suggesting that some of those guests are VS bots artificially boosting ad clicks.

VS wouldn't be that stupid would they? That sort of chicanery could bring down their business if uncovered.

Anyhoo, it's great to see all the new blood at this sleepy little site. Hope y'all stay around and build this into something great.

Both - old members coming back to speak their mind and those pesky bots. I have logged into SC maybe 5 times in the last 12 months... and the last time I saw ads - I have not been back since.

TSL is going the same way - just slower.