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Pugski.com is one of the "Top 5 Ski Forums"

Skicomau

Ski.com.au
Industry Insider
Joined
Oct 12, 2020
Posts
4
Location
Australia
Ah site search, the never ending project.

Hot Tech Tip 1.
Pay for the Xenforo upgrade - use AWS elasticsearch for the end point. It is expensive but worth it (my setup is approx $60 US per month). I went this path for forum search because 50% of threads are invisible to Google and Bing* and the older community members who remember a thread from way back and want to dig it up really appreciate it. Plus, as a separate AWS instance dedicated to just search it's super fast and puts no load on the rest of the forum - most importantly though, the results are relevant and on point.


Hot Tech Tip 2.
Bing Custom Search service on Azure. If all your content is public then nothing comes close to Bing custom search (yes, it *is* better than Google's site search offering) - plus will be less than $10US per month. Easy setup, walk away nothing more to do. | Example.

* The whole of the Apre section is excluded to Bing & Google bots to reduce signal-to-noise ratio for overall site SEO.
 

Marty McSly

Getting off the lift
Skier
Joined
Mar 7, 2017
Posts
234
We're #1 in the Americas.. #2 in the world. Anyone else think it's weird that an Australia based forum is so popular globally? I'd think Austria or some place in the Alps might be the top dog, but Australia??
I don't think it's weird at all.:ogbiggrin:
 

Marty McSly

Getting off the lift
Skier
Joined
Mar 7, 2017
Posts
234
Honestly, I didn't know that forum even existed until I saw the list. It looks like ti was started around 2000, so about when Epic started. In lurking around the site, Pugski.com is referenced quite often. Congrats to them for coming out #1.
1995. It more or less coincided with Windows 95 and its massively improved internet access compared to earlier versions.

There is a degree of overlap of membership. The attraction of Aussies to Pugski is obvious. There was a bit of a marketing effort by ski.com.au in Epicski when it's closure was announced and we picked up a few US members then.
 
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Uncle-A

In the words of Paul Simon "You can call me Al"
Skier
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Posts
10,893
Location
NJ
Hello everyone

I am Richard from ski.com.au and I’ve been running that site since 1995.

This ranking of #1 is news to me too (discovered via this thread) so I thought I’d add my 2c as to perhaps why and dispel a few misconceptions.

Our forum was launched in Jan or Feb 1998. That’s quite a while back in Internet years and that also makes us one of the longest continuously running forums by founders anywhere on the Internet.

I’m also the guy that ‘invented’ snow cams, installing 17 snow cams across 9 Aus resorts in 1998 to create the worlds first web cam ‘network’ with complete coverage of Australia’s snow industry from the get go. (Every dog has its day in the sun and that period was mine).

However, we are not globally popular. Audience is 90+% Australian and always has been. I suspect that annual ‘page views’ and ‘unique visitors‘ (quaint old-school metrics but still somewhat useful) for Pugski already outstrip ours by some margin.

What we do have though with our community is age and history and depth of knowledge.

We have a core of perhaps 100 members who have been continuously active for over 20 years, a half dozen of which are founding moderators and still with us. We also have many threads that have been continuously active for over ten years (they would likely be older except we have had to move forum software three times)

As identified, the heart of our content is the depth of travel info, especially Japan and our ‘Trip Report’ culture by punters is strong. The other engine of our forum is the weather section. Snow in Australia is fickle and as a consequence watching potential snow storms form and roll in is taken very seriously by a great many Aussies. Thus our snow forecast pundits are collectively among the best anywhere and the conversation is very very technical.
We also have a large off-topic après section that motors all year round and the community is very tight and well known to each other, both online and offline (I’ve lost count of the hookups that have led to marriage over the years).

All that said, this forum is the only ski forum I take notice of. I’ve been loosely monitoring Pugski since the death of Epicski and I’m impressed with the ‘Article/Review culture you have cultivated - obviously driven by Phil. I also can see that Phil and Trish have got a very even handed tone with the moderation - no small thing that is waaaaaaaaay harder than it seems to outsiders.

Because of our .com.au domain and the inner workings of Google, we will never attract a truly global audience, remaining AU-centric so I’m sure that Pugski will be ranked by feedspot as #1 in good time - not that spurious rankings by some half-baked other web service means anything. Economic survival is the only thing worth applying focus to. That shit ain’t easy

cheers
Welcome to the community, I will have to stop by your site for a look. Could I ask one question about the development of your site. How long did it take to build? Because you joined in 95 but didn't launch till 98 am I missing something was the site build a 3 year project?
 

Skicomau

Ski.com.au
Industry Insider
Joined
Oct 12, 2020
Posts
4
Location
Australia
Welcome to the community, I will have to stop by your site for a look. Could I ask one question about the development of your site. How long did it take to build? Because you joined in 95 but didn't launch till 98 am I missing something was the site build a 3 year project?

Site was launched in May 95. Forums were added in Jan 98 - which was about as early as it gets for plug n’ play compiled forum software to be available as a bolt-on thing.

It’s taken 25 years to build, rebuild, tear down half, rebuild half, migrate, start from scratch. fix, add an extension, expand the extension, tear down the extension, open a shop, close the shop, remove some internal walls, replace all the plumbing. Etc.

Still not finished.
 
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Uncle-A

In the words of Paul Simon "You can call me Al"
Skier
Joined
Dec 22, 2015
Posts
10,893
Location
NJ
Site was launched in May 95. Forums were added in Jan 98 - which was about as early as it gets for plug n’ play compiled forum software to be available as a bolt-on thing.

It’s taken 25 years to build, rebuild, tear down half, rebuild half, migrate, start from scratch. fix, add an extension, expand the extension, tear down the extension, open a shop, close the shop, remove some internal walls, replace all the plumbing. Etc.

Still not finished.
Got it, thanks
 

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