CHANGING TITLES/WHEN YOUR GUN SELLS

Well, that's no good.

 

My guess is that some folk don't like to leave a digital trail of their transactions, and by removing the ability to edit/delete info they feel that too much of their info is out there.

But that's just a guess.

 

I asked Joe basically the same question.
Another thing he asked was to not clear out the wording of the ad, which is something I have done for quite a while. So, for now I will just pull the contact info out of the ad and close it.

 

what he said about the "digital trail"
i dont really sell many firearms, however i was just going to post one today and am now going to reconsider

 

I hate to break it to you, but regardless of whether or not you delete information on a sale post, if someone wanted to, and had the proper tools at their disposal, they could reach out and touch you. The minute you put something on the internet, you may as well consider it written in stone.

People seem to think there is anonymity on the internet, there may be on a superficial level, but the real information is available to those who know where to gather it. Look at the NSA.....

That being said, I hardly think the government and most of its evil entities are that concerned with the comings and goings of NWF...

 

When I paid money to join this site I could change my Add Title. Now I can't. Who likes to get less?
My selfish side doesn't.

I used the Add Title to show the price. And change the price. I can't do that now.

Is it a deal killer for me? No. I love this site. It's a good resource. And I feel I get more than my money's worth. Plus I want NFA to grow.

 

Just like the government, Always telling us what we Can and Can't do...

 

Missed your ad on the pellet pistol. How much? Pics?

 

I'm confused, why the restriction on revised titles?

I found this quote; "Basically, so many people were changing thread titles that it had a very negative effect on our search engine results..."

I'm missing why a change to an ad title would have any effect on search engine results...

 

Because they want search engine hits - even if it's to an item that is no longer available apparently.

By clearing out "desert eagle .50 for sale" it will no longer show up in a Google search. Which it shouldn't, it's no longer available for sale. Sounds like they want the hit anyways.

 

Thanks Joe! I liked the ability to revise, but had no idea about search engine optimization...

 

I know quite a bit about SEO from some of my Business Consulting work. And yes, changing titles will confuse spiders, and yes some of the algorithms used by Google and Bing "supposedly" penalize content duplication and keyword stuffing, although the actual mechanism of their algorithms are a closely guarded secret -- in the pre Hummingbird days, the above was a widely accepted assumption, but since implementing Hummingbird on August 30, 2013 Google is supposedly much more interested in natural language content of webpages than page titles and keywords. Thus the most important SEO element of this website is likely the involved forum discussions and not the classified ads or their titles.

However, a permanent transactional trail is a significant negative for anyone doing lots of firearms transactions -- especially for your your most hardcore member base. in other words you are penalizing your most active and engaged members in the hopes that you will appeal to new users via the search engines. I can also assume that your pageload counts and unique visitor figures are interesting to your advertisers. . . In my business consulting work I often see situations where companies have to choose whether to pander to new customers, placate advertisers or maintain the best interests (and thus loyalty) of their dedicated user base.

As I run my personal analysis, I use this excellent website for the forum discussion and for the classifieds. If the classified listings turn into a permanent web accessible record of all my firearms related transactions I will likely discontinue or delimit my use of the classified portion and just come around for the forum discussions. Afterall, I can always just use the Armslist, GunsAmerica and OutoorTrader free classified listings. I prefer this community, but I don't like permanent transactional trails on the internet. . . And I doubt I'm the only one that feels this way.

Yes, most websites do live and die by search engines, but NWFA might be that rare case that doesn't -- you need to ask yourself whether the happiness of a dedicated user base -- one that even includes members who voluntarily contribute cash money to the website -- is your most important asset. Or alternatively, is exposure for your advertisers and the constant flow of new users generated by a high search engine rank is more valuable -- presuming that a shift in classified titles even has much of a SEO impact in the Post-Hummingbird "natural language" era.

I can't answer this for you. But, I think it is worth considering from a macro business perspective -- both in terms of the short and long term viability of NWFA. This answer will likely be rooted in your long-term vision of NWFA.

p.s. I do this kind of analysis for a living. I really like this website, and would be willing to chat with you about this in more detail, if you'd like