Also, many of us are at or approaching 10 years since d-day and have wholly different lives. Some are divorced, some still married. Some of us who had young children then have grandchildren now.
Whatever we thought "affair recovery" would look like back then, we're living it now.
I pointed out on another thread that years ago I said I wanted advice like Bart gave on that thread: clear, succinct, and to the point.
But I wouldn't have believed it. I would have "yabut" excuses for why I couldn't, shouldn't, or wouldn't do the things he suggested.
In short, there's a bit of an experience gap between us "oldtimers" and those who've had more recent experiences. We KNOW life goes on, in ways that we couldn't imagine 10 years ago, when we were laser-focused on making life as if the affair never happened.
Clearly a spouse's affair is a life-altering experience that becomes an all-consuming "thing" for many of us...for a while, for a long while, or for some, forever. No one early on wants to hear "get over it" or even "you will eventually work through it". Yet that is precisely what us "veterans" have to offer. For some, even a little whiff of "get over it" is too much, I suspect.
Finally, many of us are simply "all written out" and feel that repeating ourselves over and over is getting old: time to move on.
Personally, I think the site still has value in its old posts. I remember poring over the Arrow archives when I first found it..."finally, people who understand".
The value of helping even one person's recovery the way I was helped is worth what I pay to keep the site active. Ten times over: I got my life back. How do you pay that forward?
After starting Arrow in the Heart I was passionate about building it up. What I discovered was that rigorous advertising was the key to activity. You have to be able to find the site at the top of the lists on search engines. People don't dig especially when they are in a crisis. Then many people visited and a few stayed a while in accordance with their needs etc.
There was a site visit counter on Arrow. In less than 2 years we had well over a million hits. This site is now at 524,498 and began in late 2004.
I watched the activity rise via the owner's forum as the exposure to the web site increased.
Takes a lot of push and maintenance.
Still, in terms of global adultery experiences, it was a tiny drop of sharing.
As Chris said, after writing for 10 years, we can sometimes find our words redundant.
Yes Pat there were cliques and bonds between different people that developed over time, at the time.
What is this board here for now and who's running it?
November 15 2008, 8:37 PM
I felt that Peggy's board was set up solely for the material input of her book especially considering the abrupt way and timing with which she chose to end the BAN board.
Pat,
To keep it going somebody has to take on a part-time job.
I created the forums due to the affair experience, and now I'm basically in school due to the affair aftermath, and consequently don't have time to maintain affair forums.
Yes, we are a little burnt out. Many of us who have been here for years discussed the fact that we were sort of repeating the same things over and over. We did realize we were letting it go a bit because none of us were as interested in keeping it going for lack of something new to say. We also discussed that we thought we should leave the board up because of all the old posts and in the chance that someone new posts, they may get replies from other newbies.
For me, although I divorced, I think my main focus (in the dating world) now is how to best avoid meeting someone again who will cheat on me versus looking back and trying to discuss affairs. I still feel horrible that anyone has to go through it but can't offer much...that is just where I am at the moment.
If anyone writes here and I feel I would have something valuable to say, I will gladly still do so.
>>Ok so how do you keep it on top?<
<br>
Many books and many websites are devoted to answering this question. Many companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars employing people who will make sure that a website stays "on top".
In the past, the search engines (such as Google and Yahoo) treated each site on network54.com as a separate website. That seems to be no longer true.
After a year or so, this website, (Affair Discovery and Recovery) came up on the first, second, or third page (depending on the exact keywords) of a Google search. In other words, the "Google page rank" (as it is known in the industry) was quite high. A site regarding the healing of hearts of bereaved parents has a Google page rank of about 5 (pretty darn good). A site called "Healing Heart" that deals with affair recovery has a rank of 3. Affair Discovery and Recovery has "no pagerank information available".
When I searched Google using the keyword phrase "affair discovery and recovery" (i.e., the exact title of this site), I scrolled through several pages without finding the website. I've searched using several other keywords phrases on Google and I still can't get the website to come up. My best guess is that "improvements" in the algorithm that Google uses to search the web ensure that this website is not considered to be a unique website but simply a part of other network54.com websites. Forum administrators on network54 probably have discussed this problem but I haven't taken the time to find out for sure.
IMHO, the amount of traffic on this site (or any site like it) will be determined primarily by its Google page rank (and to a much lesser extent by its rank on other search engines). Everything else that you try to do to increase traffic on this site (and on most sites like it) will be wasted time and energy if the Google page rank is not established (and improved) first. People won't come to a website if they can't find it.
