Charas, what has happened...?

[Shady Ultima]

Carmen... you sure it would be a good domain name to attract new (and young) users? I assume you know what the charas is...

Uh, I don't know if my search is weird but all I find is this site and the hockey player Zdeno Chara? I'm kinda confused on this now.


But on the point of the new domain name, I think that having charas.net or something similar would be good. For a long time I would just google charas and come to the forums that way, cause I'd forget the address.

[Ben]

Charas is a type of lebanese Hash or some junk.

Lebanese Hash is Garbage anyhow.

[Linkforce]

Well I'm glad my thread, for the most part, sparked some good ideas and plans to move the site forward.  With RMN closing down, I'll be packing my things up and moving back to Charas, my original home.  I think organization and accessability should be the top priorities of the site moving forward.  Then onto making games and all things involving them the center of attention.  I thin before RMN closes down, those who have the power to change the site should take a trip on over there to see what they were doing with game profiles, which I thought was a genius idea, rather then making a normal thread for your game.  I think we should change the "Games" section and move it to the top of the site and have like a game profile thing, where each game has it's own page.....much like on RMN.
If you want to see the difference in my game here and there, click the link.  http://rpgmaker.net/games/1748/

As you can see, the organization is much much better and user friendly.  I think something like this would make charas so much better.

[Shady Ultima]

Yea, I agree Linkforce, I had already mentioned that I would like to see us incorporate some of the Game pages from RMN.

...dude. what. I managed to remember charas-project.net/forum/index.php and charas-project.net/resources.php?lang=en ever since I was friggin 13. It can't be that hard. I don't see the reason for a domain change. Maybe redirect charas.net to charas-project.net but I'm not even sure about that.

Well, perhaps your memory is better than mine?

[fruckert]

An actual "Games" page would be awesome, instead of a board.

[carmen]

All I'm saying is, when you have to Google charas just to get the correct url, (I had to do it recently) there's a problem. I understand there's a sentimental value to the url, but it wouldn't be gone. I think that and finalizing a gallery tool, would give us a nice fresh boost

Edit: you know what I mean? I mean people come here and they see the same board, the same stuff. But they see the new url, the new gallery system, and say hey, things are going on here, things are happening. Y kna?

[Alex]

Just my 2 techy cents...

Would the domain name really give this freshness sensation?
No matter what (else) the charas is, the keyword "charas" still lists us as firsts. How many users are still manually writing an url in the address bar? Email notifications, google, bookmarks... I honestly doubt it would even be noticed.

Because yes, we would still have to keep the actual domain name, forever: it's a 9 yo and established domain, and this is our main SEO force. This is the domain linked by hunderd forums all around the internet. Changing the domain and making this one weaker would reduce our SEO position, while our actual position in search engines would probably be the best way to boost new projects.

In one word, a single move into the charas-project.net domain would be reflected in realtime by Search engines. Popular sites are spidered more often than newer ones, as they're more "trusted".
But a new domain would be like a new site: it would need years to gain popularity by itself, while weakening the current domain because of the so called crossdomain-contents.

So, technically talking: would this really worth the risk?

[carmen]

You brought up good points, nine years. And the true user base stays relatively low for the amount of hits we get. We can't have multiple domains?  I'm not talking about keeping hits, I'm talking about keeping users. The domain would not be a big thing, your right, but it would spice things up imho.*salt shakers dance*

Like right now, we're a truck stop, where most people come here to get resources. I want us to be a hotel, where people stay a while, and get free breakfast. So while a url change may not help a lot by itself, paired with other changes would be a much needed face lift.

[Alex]

Just a silly example:
Users creating new RP games would like to be reviewed by sites granting them also visibility. So they would search google for something like "RPG reviews", to see which are the most popular RP sites.

Now Suppose we will launch some dedicated page to RP games reviews. Such a page into the current domain, known to search engines, would more likely be placed well in results.
By try to place the very same page on any other unknown domain... do you think it would pop up on top the same way?

What i was pointing out is the current domain would be stronger in proposing outside whatever we will do new.
It's not about getting hits, it's about getting even more active users. I mean, users looking for a good place to DO and SHOW things.

[carmen]

What about making a shorter domain just a redirect to the current? Then the result would be the same? And the shortcut would still be in place

[Alex]

Everything could be done, but I'd like to hear what other member thinks about this, by keeping in mind also the "popularity" variable i'be pointed out.

My opinion is it should not be done: any link to one domain is a link less to the other one. Having redirects would simply weak down both of them. In a really ancient past we faced the very same problem because the popular link was the "alex.ombra.net" address, it took 3 years to disappear as google's 1st page results evenif we completely redirected anything to the new chras-project.net domain

[carmen]

Well either way, I think we should keep the ideas coming. Really brain storm it up. Considering we have the resources to make this old community into something very awesome, I think we should just brain fart until we come up with some solid ideas!


On a side note, my lap top just died, and as I was going through the hard drive before I found your wedding pictures, Alex. I was like why the f did I save these!?) Lol

[Shady Ultima]

I think having charas.net re-direct to charas-project.net would work best. That way, people have an easier time with it.

[Dragonium]

Wait, no. Okay.

First, we buy out Google.

[coasterkrazy]

I'm late to this thread, and I admit to not reading more than the first page, but I know the feeling you're talking about. I always thought it was just me, though, and not Charas, especially after coming back and seeing how many people were still here. I guess I'm still not entirely sure which it is, but there's one thing that always sticks out in my mind. Remember the Chain Game? That was the best thing I ever remember being completed, and it was a group effort. I really think someone should start something like that up again. It doesn't require too much of a commitment from anyone and all the little bits that people do put in makes a decently lengthy and fun game.