Most mornings I wake up and visit The Astral Pulse forums and it feels like a ghost town, as there is nothing new to read. This is unfortunate. Fellow members, this is a friendly reminder that it is important to not only read posts here on The Pulse, but to comment and contribute as well. In addition, it would be great to see some of the less outspoken members start a new thread now and then as well. All contributions are relevant, productive and helpful, not only to the original poster, but to those commenting. We all help each other to grow spiritually. If the lurkers don't start contributing, at some point there will be nothing to comment on. The ones that do have something to post have less incentive to post if their posts become part of a basically "read only" forum.
Thanks for reading and I look forward to the anticipated upswing in activity here. 🙂
I agree completely. I see this forum as a goldmine of information and support for those at any stage of a spiritual journey. The more other ask questions and share their experiences, the more valuable this resource will become. I only recently joined, but it has been such a big help to be able to ask questions and learn from those with more knowledge and experience. It's such a welcoming community, and I have yet to experience any kind of negativity or judgement here. If anyone wants to learn or ask questions, don't hesitate to join in.
Thanks Frosty and Traveler! I agree, the more dialog goes on, the more additional information would unravel. Even if you say just a few words to encourage someone or agree/disagree, provide your opinion, would help with the conversations. When you become a part of the group and join the conversations you will feel less alone, because the truth is not many people express these types of thoughts to their regular friends and family as this is not something widely spread and many people feel isolated or misunderstood.
Hi FrostyTraveler, good point! I've wondered the same thing. It seems astral projection forums aren't as popular as they were 15 years ago, perhaps due to the rise of social media. I find social media platforms uncomfortable for discussing topics like this, new threads would be lost in countless new posts and comments. Unlike here, where information is organized and easily accessible.
Last year, when I joined this forum and made some posts, I considered starting a journal, but I had doubts, feeling I needed more experience and knowledge from studying books. Then I realized, people want to see progress and growth! So, people, you don't need to be an advanced projector to create a thread here. We want to celebrate your successes, clarify your doubts and allay your fears :-).
I notice around 100-150 members online whenever I log in. So, I invite everyone to participate. There are other topics within the forum worth exploring as well. I like everything related to merging physical and non-physical realms, as delving more into meditation and energy work, these areas also interest me, and I'm eager to learn more.
Looking forward to connecting!★ :wink:
When I started this forum 22 years ago, the Internet an search engine landscape was very different. Most pages and therefore topics were indexed in Google and there were far fewer very large websites mentioning Astral Projection and OBE etc. A search for AP/OBE and related topics would invariably result in Astral Pulse appearing, which brought many people to the forums to interact. Over the years however Google has constantly developed its algorithms to place increasingly less emphasis on forums in general. These days searches on these subjects will usually see large multimedia websites with high rankings who wrote an article on AP. I am sure however that there are still plenty of pages indexed and people find the forums on more specific searches.
All that said, I note that whenever I visit there is often more than 100 people online which probably equates to over 1000 visitors per day. Xanth, who took over the forums and is doing an excellent job of keeping things running, will probable have actual traffic stats. Engagement of course is pivotal in keeping any forum active, the more that engage, the more are inclined to join in. So yes, it is somewhat of a conundrum as to how actually to engage all those people who do visit every day.
Adrian, that brings up a very good point. Google algorithms are constantly changing. Even if I search "Astral Projection Forums" The Astral Pulse forum does not come up until the bottom of page 4. This is not ideal. It's best to come up somewhere on the first page, as most people's don't have the patience do read past page 1 or 2. Two other small astral projection forums come up much earlier, which I assume have much less traffic. It appears that some SEO/organic search engine adjustments could greatly improve the Astral Pulse's visibility on Google searches. This in turn should increase traffic. There is still the dilemma that the large amount of lurkers here should contribute and become part of the community, not just readers of the community. The archives are vast, but a sense of ongoing activity would be very healthy for the forum and our spiritual development.
Quote from: Frostytraveler on September 19, 2024, 07:56:19Adrian, that brings up a very good point. Google algorithms are constantly changing. Even if I search "Astral Projection Forums" The Astral Pulse forum does not come up until the bottom of page 4. This is not ideal. It's best to come up somewhere on the first page, as most people's don't have the patience do read past page 1 or 2. Two other small astral projection forums come up much earlier, which I assume have much less traffic. It appears that some SEO/organic search engine adjustments could greatly improve the Astral Pulse's visibility on Google searches. This in turn should increase traffic. There is still the dilemma that the large amount of lurkers here should contribute and become part of the community, not just readers of the community. The archives are vast, but a sense of ongoing activity would be very healthy for the forum and our spiritual development.
Yes I do agree with your observations.
There is not much that can be done by way of SEO because user contributed topics and posts are what they are, and not really open to SEO as would an article written for a website etc.
That said, a component of the Google algorithm definitely takes into account frequency and volume of fresh content, which brings us right back to encouraging more visitors, of which there are plenty, to engage with the forums more.
Perhaps adding frequent feature articles, in the form of a blog or otherwise to The Pulse could help. As you mentioned, Google algorithms see that and of course an improvement in the number of visitors that engage.
I've been hanging out a bit on the r/AstralProjection subreddit. I also have my own sub there r/AstralAcademy.
A lot of people already know about the Astral Pulse, but I'm trying to grow the forum by pointing people here. There is very much a huge desire out there for people to learn how to Project and I feel that this forum and the absolutely amazing folks we have here are a great resource for people wanting to learn. Y'all are patient, knowledgeable and just amazingly friendly. I love that! :)
A big thanks to everyone who has made this forum one of the best places to learn about Projection on the net! A bigger thanks to Adrian for initially bringing this place to life. <3
I have only been a Pulse member for a little over a year now, but have never seen the boards so active. I just wanted to say a big thank you to everybody for the increase in activity! 🙂 It is refreshing to see, and adds so much to the spiritual experience.
To follow up on this topic. As the forum has become more active over the last week or so, the search engine rankings have improved accordingly. A Google search now places Astral Pulse on the first page of the results for the search term "astral projection forums". The Google search result may well vary according to data centre location, previous searches for this search term etc. On the Bing search engine Astral Pulse is actually the top result and appears twice on the first page.
I have also noticed that coincident with these factors, the number of forum users online at any moment has almost doubled - 200 as I write and often up to around 300 some days. I don't have access to the actual web stats, but this surely means thousands of people are visiting the forums ever day and hopefully benefitting from the wealth of content available here.
I realise we only post when we have something to share, but it would be nice to maintain this increased activity for the benefit of all those coming here to learn about these subjects. Even topics such as the recent "comedies" are most welcome.
I have also noticed more new members and/or members posting that I don't typically see. Also when doing the same search via Google in the US, the Pulse is now on page 1, maybe 60-70% down on the page, which is still good placement.
I am happy to see the return to message boards, versus social media. People are getting stressed even trying to navigate, post, and hopefully find others to read their posts on the big tech sites. Conversely, places like the Astral Pulse are attracting people more than in the past because people just want genuine connection, not bots nor ads.
Just my two pennies.
I stickied this thread because I feel some great points were made here. Keep up the good work!
I was a vendor at a Wellness show on Saturday Nov 9th, here in Minnesota, and met a lot of great like-minded, good-natured people. The positive energy at the show was incredible. I gave them info on this Forum here and I would like to use this "lurker thread" here to welcome them personally to the Forum and I hope they will turn from lurker into participant. I only get a few moments at these shows to hear their stories about non-physical exploration and I see that they are being led to seek out more answers.
If you are serious about learning this "Art". The Art of non-physical exploration, in all of it's many forms, we can aide you in doing just that. Welcome to our "Family"! That seems to be the way it is here. So much "camaraderie and sharing" goes on here and we welcome all the lurkers to be an "active" part of it.
Thank YOu! :-)