Website of NS2
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[HBZ] Member Join Date: 2005-02-22 Member: 42087Members, Reinforced - Shadow
[HBZ] Member Join Date: 2005-02-22 Member: 42087Members, Reinforced - Shadow
<div class="IPBDescription">Is not up to date!</div>If you go on <a href="http://www.naturalselection2.com/" target="_blank">http://www.naturalselection2.com/</a> that the last news on this site is soon 1 year old (beside the video) also the whole media site is old and could use some new pics (PG, Welde etc.)
If you go on the "old" NS1 site <a href="http://www.naturalselection.com" target="_blank">http://www.naturalselection.com</a> you are up to date about NS2.
So the offical NS2 site isn't that what it should be. And that isn't good because if you search on google for "natural selection 2" (more direct hits with Natural selection 2 to UWE than with NS2) you get directed to a 1 year old non updated page.
And BTW here in switzerland if you search for natural selection the UWE comes at place 1. and 2. folowed by darwin at 3.
If you go on the "old" NS1 site <a href="http://www.naturalselection.com" target="_blank">http://www.naturalselection.com</a> you are up to date about NS2.
So the offical NS2 site isn't that what it should be. And that isn't good because if you search on google for "natural selection 2" (more direct hits with Natural selection 2 to UWE than with NS2) you get directed to a 1 year old non updated page.
And BTW here in switzerland if you search for natural selection the UWE comes at place 1. and 2. folowed by darwin at 3.
Comments
Still amazed that we have a redirect for naturalselection.com
Great advertising if people ever wanted to look it up.
But not to worry, with all of the new features in the game, ns2.com will definitely be seeing some love and attention soon.
I think the blog page <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/</a> would make a better home page than <a href="http://www.naturalselection2.com/" target="_blank">http://www.naturalselection2.com/</a>
That may just be my hatred of auto loading videos.
Here's a screenshot of a self-built tool illustrating the percentage of clicks each site gets with google search "natural selection 2"
<img src="http://i.imm.io/cY3Y.png" border="0" class="linked-image" />
According to Google there are 27 000 searches made with search string "natural selection 2" every month. This means that about 13 770 people interested in the game are lead to website that basically tells them that the project is dead.
If UWE was my client i would be working night and day until this is fixed.
I really hope UWE can afford to lose all these 14k people per month.
Agree with this atleast do it till you have some time to update the page. It's a fast thing to do and gives more advertising than the old page.
<!--quoteo(post=1890301:date=Dec 15 2011, 12:47 AM:name=peregrinus)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (peregrinus @ Dec 15 2011, 12:47 AM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1890301"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Well there's the twitter and that's up to date. And the forums are always around.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well if someone looks for NS2 and finds a 1 year old site, do you think he would go to the forums? I for example just look from time too time for a AA3 update on the offical site, but if they don't anounce a new update there but somewhere else I wouldn't see it. Ppl are lazy today.
This.
Though, I have the blog page, rather than the front page, bookmarked for NS2.
But it is clear that this lack of communication can harm their baby a little bit.
When I say the name of the game I play, nobody knows.
Well, you know what you got to do...
;)
The NS2.com website doesn't actually seem that outdated, it has all the ingredients for the exact website purpose. That is, the site is designed as a selling tool, an advertising tool, a marketing tool, unlike the UWE/DEV site. The UWE/dev blog is more of an informative tool, the only thing that may be lacking is simply the visibility of linking more so to the blog.
I don't actually think NS2.com is harming NS2 in anyway. In my opinion it is much more engaging and better geared towards selling the game than the blog, and in my opinion, it's exactly what the team need.
I was just about to say: "Good luck to selling with a year old holiday sale that is not in effect anymore" but looks like the site has been updated today with two more news. Good job guys!
The video is actual. All the other things ;news and actual build) are done some hours ago and weren't there before this thread.
We decided to have a separate "press" site that just gave the glossiest basics of the game instead of including blog updates, forums and all the other stuff that die-hards like you guys come back for. Maybe we shouldn't have a separate site, I dunno, but it seems like most people just want to check out the game a bit, follow it and then be notified when it's released.
By the time this thread started, the latest news was the xmas special 2010 ^^ (ok to be fair, the youtube video was there which is from patch 186 or so)
You were losing marketing value and money because some people judge the ns2 development project by googling for ns2, clicking ns2.com and just checking the news and their release dates. Some users are not interested in email, facebook or twitter. All they see is a year old site which makes them think that the whole project is dead and has nothing to offer for them. They close the browser tab and go to Google for the next game they're interested in.
But of course you know the situation better since you have Google Analytics installed. If the bounce rate is close 0% and everybody are clickin fb, twitter or mail linnks everything is fine, but I seriously doubt that. I would imagine the bounce rate to be very high lately. But now that there are same news added the situation is already better. Keep up the good work!
This is pretty disingenuous. Even before the update things were just out of date, there was nothing to say that the project was dead at all. Plus, a recent video and plenty of links to places where you can see more recent progress. Besides which, since we rely so much on word-of-mouth, most of the people visiting NS2.com will already have some context on the whole thing. I don't think we get many sales from people randomly googling "Natural Selection" and then impulse buying.
At any rate it's all moot now, since it's been updated and will see more updates over the coming weeks.
It's probably better to have 'post to UWE' and 'post to NS2' functionality so you can update the .com site with cherry-picked news. Also, having that option alone reminds you to keep NS2.com updated every so often.
At any rate it's all moot now, since it's been updated and will see more updates over the coming weeks.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
What you say about Googling and impulse buying is correct. But usually word of mouth marketing leads to people Googling the website, and if all they find is a year old sales update all the word of mouth marketing might be of no use. There's a huge value in keeping people interested in the game can then converting that value to money in the game release. You don't need to tell a person that a project is dead. Very few projects actually ever bother to tell that to anyone. People are intelligent enough to understand it if nothing has happened on the project's official website for months.
Anyhow. No need to keep arguing about it. You can see the numbers on your own. You have Google analytics, the forums, facebook page, youtube account and twitter etc. and their own analytics tools.
We decided to have a separate "press" site that just gave the glossiest basics of the game instead of including blog updates, forums and all the other stuff that die-hards like you guys come back for. Maybe we shouldn't have a separate site, I dunno, but it seems like most people just want to check out the game a bit, follow it and then be notified when it's released.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, until recently the site had not been updated for a year. This gave the immediate impression that it is a dead project - to be honest, many people's only impression of NS2 is that it is vaporware. Many of those who are googling to find the site are probably vaguely aware that the game has been in development for a long time but aren't sure what the current status is. For example, just recently I was curious what was happening with Black Mesa Source... Go visit <a href="http://blackmesasource.com/" target="_blank">http://blackmesasource.com/</a> and tell me what your initial impression of that project is. It looks nice on the surface but when you look for recent updates the first thing you'll notice is that the last twitter post is two years old.
Now there are a few recent news entries and that's good, but it still doesn't paint the full picture. You guys have a lot of cool stuff being done these days and that site hardly shows off any of it. Every beta patch should have a news blurb on the front page IMO. Show people who are curious that the game is in continuous development and making good progress. Priority #1 after grabbing their interest should be inspiring confidence in the project since it's very much unproven in the eyes of the public. Speaking as someone who knows for a fact where the real news blog is, I have no idea how to even get there from ns2.com and that is a huge problem.
when writing www.naturalselection2.com you should be redirected to <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns2/</a>
same with naturalselection.com --> <a href="http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/" target="_blank">http://www.unknownworlds.com/ns/</a>
Problem solved, while having www.unknownworlds.com the main source for all games, having one forum for everything Like we have right now :) perfect :D