What's happening at BTR 3 .. and report issues here

[apoppin]

I noticed a glitch the other day as well; the server got really slow around 5PM EST.

Overall this host has been very reliable though.

Actually the new host that Dave uses for ABT is excellent as well, perhaps even better than the one you're using for BTR.  I don't think I have seen ABT go down since Dave got the new host and it's blazing fast for me.

Of course, ABT is fast. There is no site left. Just a brand new forum with a tiny DB. :P


When our traffic demands it, I will upgrade from a shared server. Until then, it's fine for up to maybe 50,000 visitors per month (we can grow our traffic 2X to 3X with no problems on this server)


OK, I'm back to work


(work)
:D

[apoppin]

Windows 10 evidently got its first (big) update today. So I stopped benching (Cat 11.1-1 Beta) until I can update my PC tonight.

In the meantime, I am playing FO4 on my AMD PC (on 11.1) and I will update the drivers to see if 290X got a performance boost. I'll post the results here and in my FO4 benching thread.

Fury X is gone at $589 from Newegg. However, it is $599 at Amazon and $629 at TD. So I won't lose out.

---

Also, GF WHQL 359.00 has been released this morning for AC: Syndicate and Overwatch

http://www.geforce.com/whats-new/article...r-released

So I have 'my' work cut out for me. But no benching today until Windows 10 is updated.
- my "work" is FO4 today!

[apoppin]

It's only taken a week for Mario's SEO work to have a positive effect on BTR's ranking, and it may go up further on the strength of his work.

http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/babeltechreviews.com

Global Rank - 1,604,627 (up 413,148)
Rank in United States - 823,310 (up ~150,000)

[SickBeast]

That's great! I had a feeling that it was already having an effect. It's too bad it wasn't set up when you wrote all of your previous articles. We should continue to see the traffic go way up now though (I hope).

[apoppin]

That's great!  I had a feeling that it was already having an effect.  It's too bad it wasn't set up when you wrote all of your previous articles.  We should continue to see the traffic go way up now though (I hope).

Well, it is definitely having an effect today. I didn't know much (and I still don't know much) about SEO implementation and BTR was mostly getting hits from the forum posting of the articles. If it was done right in the beginning, it would have been nice, but now the search engines have indexed the site and it is much easier to find ALL of the article now!

I am going to get a new version of muvee's Reveal and I'll review it. The old version that I have is what I post my Youtube IQ comparison videos with; the new version is better (and cheap too, $20 to upgrade!)

[SickBeast]

Cool. It's going to be really interesting watching the traffic on Alexa for the next month or so. Hopefully the traffic will continue to go way up.

[apoppin]

Well, I need to buy some new games.

What do you think of these games and the current prices at GMG?

Star Wars Battlefront - Was $59.99 (Now $49.99)
Assassin’s Creed Syndicate - Was $59.99 (Now $37.99)
Rainbow Six Siege - Was $59.99 (Now $42.99)

I hear Star Wars Battlefront totally sucks and is MP mostly, so forget that one (Graphics are nice, however).

Evidently reviewer's keys (for me) have dried up ...

[SickBeast]

Wow. Just show them your GTA V article, it's very well written with lots of detail and information.

The games look like they must eat up a lot of your budget. You're stuck buying them when they're new which is quite expensive.

I don't know much about those games at all. Isn't the Assassin's Creed game based on Unity? I'm just wondering if it might be a bit redundant in terms of your benchmarks.

I just checked the price history of those games on CheapShark and those prices look good. It's up to you, I don't know how badly you need them. If it were me I think I would focus more on the AAA titles and maybe buy the other games when they have been out longer so you can get them cheaper.

[apoppin]

Well, Assassin's Creed Syndicate is the new game and it will be really popular. It has better visuals than Unity and would replace it.

Buying one game a month will not break me. The holiday season gets a lot of games, and the Summer, not so many.

It's a matter of traffic when requesting AAA games. The publishers don't care if I am a good reviewer or not - they want a lot of eyes on what is published. I would have zero problem getting reviewer's keys if BTR was in the top 100K sites.

[SickBeast]

Well if things keep going at a good clip you will hopefully crack the top 500,000 sites by the end of the year. Then next year who knows, hopefully you can do it. I'm wondering if you will need to expand BTR to more reviewers to meet that goal though. It's going to be hard for you to pull it off on your own. I could help over the summer but I don't have experience and I don't know how easily we could obtain review samples for me. Greg would probably be a great reviewer as well. Getting hardware to him would be expensive and a PITA though.