I have put in authorship tags and a few other things, and I do have a Google+ page. I do have some more to do with Google+. As to links to Google+, I do have a link in the top of the sidebar and at the bottom of each page there is a Google+ "Recommend" button", as well as a LinkedIn "InShare" button. I hope people use them.
Key is that Elsmar is not going to be another LinkedIn (for example). Google announced about a year or so ago that it was changing its search algorithm from being a "search" engine to being a "knowledge" engine. Elsmar's peak was in 2011 after which it entered a slow decline up to the "crash" at the end of July 2012. Elsmar has recovered somewhat and appears to have stabilized fairly well.
We have a number of factors involved, one of which I call the "Walmartization" of the internet. I don't read the webmaster forums as often as I was for a while in large part because I'm seeing the "little guys" crash and burn with regularity, and there's not a thing they can do about it as large, well funded companies take over their niches.
There are also other factors, one of which is Elsmar is a "niche" forum for technical specialists. For better or worse, it has also changed its focus on some standards and widened to include things it was never focused upon before such as aerospace and especially medical devices. Elsmar once had good ISO 9001 readership and "authority". It is now diluted. That's not to mention increasing competition which I think I discussed earlier.
Being a niche forum (and remember - It is a forum which are notorious for low readership) it limits who is going to find it. In addition Elsmar usually comes up on "long tail" searches which is its bread and butter, so to speak.
Let me do this - A quick "status" report of sorts.
Elsmar is off about 40% from it's 2011 peak. That's still not too bad. I started this thread in somewhat of a panic because the 2012 "crash" put me in the position I was in in 2003. It was costing me to keep it online. Had we not had a reasonable recovery it wouldn't be online today. Luckily AdSense is keeping Elsmar afloat. I haven't billed any advertisers since Sept-Oct 2012 because I did not think I could morally do so. I am in the process of contacting advertisers and a couple have cancelled. I do 3 month ad runs and so I started with January advertisers. I am getting ready to contact February advertisers and in March will contact those advertisers. But for now adsense is doing OK which is why I'm investing what will end up being around US$4K to migrate to a new server (the DEC 2012 migration really screwed things up - Long story).
At this point in time Elsmar is financially safe. It will, of course, be better if all the advertisers do not cancel. Time will tell on that one. On the other hand, there is a point at which, my being in my 60's, that the profit may not be enough to keep me interested enough to spend the time I do keeping things in order and the site online. I could retire and end being somewhat chained to this desk for many hours a day.
The internet has significantly evolved. I am trying to evolve with it. But since this is not a "big money" operation, there is a limit on my keeping up, especially with the big money sites.
