Jump to content

Sidebars... COME ON!


cmiller

Recommended Posts

Actually sidebars on all pages are useless unless you want to stuff them with ads. I can't think of one site I have ever been to that had any useful information in the sidebars not on the forum home. I have even been to sites where they have the default forum home sidebar with useful info such as last posts and recent news and along side another with nothing but ads that follow you through to each post you read.

The only thing more annoying than sidebars on all pages is those js ads that follow you down the screen or popup when you hover over a word.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


Actually sidebars on all pages are useless unless you want to stuff them with ads. I can't think of one site I have ever been to that had any useful information in the sidebars not on the forum home. I have even been to sites where they have the default forum home sidebar with useful info such as last posts and recent news and along side another with nothing but ads that follow you through to each post you read.



The only thing more annoying than sidebars on all pages is those js ads that follow you down the screen or popup when you hover over a word.




You must run some hobby site, or do this stuff for fun. :)

90% of new visitors come in from search engines and land on a specific topic. Where do they go from there? To another site.... never to be seen again. Check your bounce rate before posting nonsense out here!!!

Too many of you guys view your forums as "just a forum". I tend to view all of ours as CONTENT DRIVEN BEASTS and I like to make money with them.

Have you ever seen a good website WITHOUT a side nav bar? I doubt it..... not a good one anyway. Sure, I want to use ads but I also want a navigation bar accessible to all users, many who will be visiting for the first time and absolutely kill our bounce rate because forums SUCK at navigation and content delivery.

Vbulletin and IPS both fail in this category. Forums are the source of a LOT of quality content. Quit treating forums like they are nothing but "chat" and treat them them like they are... QUALITY CONTENT!!!!
Link to comment
Share on other sites


You must run some hobby site, or do this stuff for fun. :)



90% of new visitors come in from search engines and land on a specific topic. Where do they go from there? To another site.... never to be seen again. Check your bounce rate before posting nonsense out here!!!




We'd appreciate if you could please keep your discussion civil and on topic, and avoid antagonistic statements.
Link to comment
Share on other sites


Most of us need a global sidebar. Why is this not an option? I just paid $20 thru the marketplace to buy an addon that doesnt even work!



Come on guys! Keep us moving towards the 21st century!!




Well, with that tone and topic title, you will not come a long way. Make a nice feature request and come with some good reasons behind the request.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

What doesn't work? I asked you in support topic for my mod but you want to post here instead of answer me. What's wrong with you? I want to help you, but it seemd you don't want it.

My mod works fine and I can give you proof - for example opinions from my clients.. Do you want?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Most of us need a global sidebar. Why is this not an option?


I agree. REAL sidebar across the board would be very interesting, instead of blocks to show adverts or simple texts!

We could, for example, create hooks to show information about the open forum in forum view... or even topics! Show some statistics in Member List, via hook, about the members; etc.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am actually working on a modification right now that would add most of those functionalities. Check it out here. It should give an easy and effective method of browsing the forums. If you have any feedback / suggestions please let me know.

About the sidebar mod, I would suggest you talk to the developer if you are having issues getting it to work, he should be able to help you there. I personally think that a sidebar on every page could be slightly annoying since it would be a permanent screen size reduction.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


What doesn't work? I asked you in support topic for my mod but you want to post here instead of answer me. What's wrong with you? I want to help you, but it seemd you don't want it.



My mod works fine and I can give you proof - for example opinions from my clients.. Do you want?




This is unrelated to your mod. I think this should be built into the software so I posted here. I replied to your question over on your support thread. :)
Link to comment
Share on other sites


I can't think of one site I have ever been to that had any useful information in the sidebars not on the forum home.


StackExchange sites have made very good use of the global sidebar: http://superuser.com/

Of course they also have other useful features that are often requested here like Related Posts, Tags, and Badges.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Let me preface this with stating that I'm certainly not AGAINST a global sidebar. We've had it on an internal potential features list for quite some time, in fact. That said...


Have you ever seen a good website WITHOUT a side nav bar? I doubt it..... not a good one anyway. Sure, I want to use ads but I also want a navigation bar accessible to all users, many who will be visiting for the first time and absolutely kill our bounce rate because forums SUCK at navigation and content delivery.



This is rubbish, in my humble opinion (and, that is truly just my opinion). I've been to PLENTY of websites that do not utilize side-bars at all, or do not utilize them for navigation.

Additionally, I would completely disagree that forums have poor navigation. Forums (in general, not IPB specifically) actually have very structured and easy-to-understand navigation for the average user, in my opinion. That's not to say exploration of different navigation approaches or methods of delivering content (i.e. navigation bars at the top that let you easily jump to any forum, or a homepage where the new topics are served as a "feed" at the top) shouldn't be explored, but to say forums have crappy navigation is incorrect, again in my opinion. ;)

We should balance what we *want* (i.e. feature suggestions) with reality, I would say.


Having said that, I see value in a global sidebar for various purposes. I know there is at least one custom mod to address this need, and I'm sure there are other ways to address this need as well. I cannot confirm if we will or won't look into this in a future release at this time.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

I think that a global sidebar feature would be of great value - especially for commercially driven sites.
First of all - as cmiller states - a big forum serves as a search engine magnet. Visitors coming from search engines are more likely to visit mores pages if they are presented with stuff like tag clouds and "Most read articles".
Secondly, the sidebar is the obvious place for serving ads. I think that many IPB sites are structured with a forum part and a CMS based content part. The possibility to serve ads in similar places across the hole website makes selling campaigns a lot easier.

Currently I'm using a mod for this and I am quite sure this has paid for itself much more than a 100 times :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Basically, it shouldn't be a problem. The ability to put blocks of content in the side is great and it should simply work like it does in most CMS. Add a block and mark which sections it should be displayed in. If no side blocks are defined for a given section then no sidebar is displayed.

As it is now with a hard coded sidebar function only for the index page, it is actually extremely difficult to skin your way out of the problem.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IPB isn't a CMS mind you and doesn't intend to be. It is very easy to add a global sidebar on a skin, and it shouldn't even be that difficult to make it not show up on certain pages...

If you don't think you can figure that out, there is a modification that gives the functionality you are looking for.

Link to comment
Share on other sites


90% of new visitors come in from search engines and land on a specific topic. Where do they go from there? To another site.... never to be seen again.



Too many of you guys view your forums as "just a forum". I tend to view all of ours as CONTENT DRIVEN BEASTS and I like to make money with them.



Have you ever seen a good website WITHOUT a side nav bar? I doubt it..... not a good one anyway. Sure, I want to use ads but I also want a navigation bar accessible to all users, many who will be visiting for the first time and absolutely kill our bounce rate because forums SUCK at navigation and content delivery.



Vbulletin and IPS both fail in this category. Forums are the source of a LOT of quality content. Quit treating forums like they are nothing but "chat" and treat them them like they are... QUALITY CONTENT!!!!




I totally agree to the "edited" version of your post. When a visitor land on a page, there HAS to be some sort of related posts/topics/resources so the visitor can stay on the website. The more time visitors stay on a website, the more chances they gonna develop loyalty towards it and eventually join your community or buy your products.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest Larry Thompson

I think that a global sidebar feature would be of great value - especially for commercially driven sites.


First of all - as cmiller states - a big forum serves as a search engine magnet. Visitors coming from search engines are more likely to visit mores pages if they are presented with stuff like tag clouds and "Most read articles".


Secondly, the sidebar is the obvious place for serving ads. I think that many IPB sites are structured with a forum part and a CMS based content part. The possibility to serve ads in similar places across the hole website makes selling campaigns a lot easier.



Currently I'm using a mod for this and I am quite sure this has paid for itself much more than a 100 times :-)




That's where Invisionize Media comes in. A global sidebar is part of this hook I'm curruently working on with my app. It's still going to be awhile, but at least you can put your money where your mouth is. :)
Link to comment
Share on other sites


You must run some hobby site, or do this stuff for fun. :)



90% of new visitors come in from search engines and land on a specific topic. Where do they go from there? To another site.... never to be seen again. Check your bounce rate before posting nonsense out here!!!



Too many of you guys view your forums as "just a forum". I tend to view all of ours as CONTENT DRIVEN BEASTS and I like to make money with them.



Have you ever seen a good website WITHOUT a side nav bar? I doubt it..... not a good one anyway. Sure, I want to use ads but I also want a navigation bar accessible to all users, many who will be visiting for the first time and absolutely kill our bounce rate because forums SUCK at navigation and content delivery.



Vbulletin and IPS both fail in this category. Forums are the source of a LOT of quality content. Quit treating forums like they are nothing but "chat" and treat them them like they are... QUALITY CONTENT!!!!



The above post is correct - quality content from a publisher's perspective with side bars is essential. I have over four dozen IPB sites, however, the V-Bulletin side bars for my legacy sites are hard to match.

Some might *think* that side bars are a waste but for publishers it's a necessity. Two of my friends run some of the largest forums on the web and they guess what, all have side bars.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

An add can placed in the Board index sidebar as shown in the image below. IP Nexus required. Without Nexus I'm pretty sure all you can do with the built in code is place an ad in the global template in the member bar or at the bottom.

3DKiwi

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...