My email software was blocking your banner image. I told it to allow it and now it works. I must have told it to allow your old banner sometime in the past.
The following user says Thank You to ron99 for this post:
"Futures dot I O" does have a nice ring to it, but as with all sudden massive changes, it'll take some time to get used to. BMT had a close knit community feel, like everyone is involved, heck even the owner posts regularly. "Futures dot I O" sounds super generic and lacks the community vibe, but I believe with proper branding and effort, the name will equate and possibly surpass BMT in the near future.
Looking forward to the future!
The following user says Thank You to TheTradeSlinger for this post:
IMO, er..., this community could be called 'Toadies Trades', and it wouldn't make a difference. What matters is this community of traders who are awesome-helpful, going out of their way, in many many cases to make others feel welcomed and appreciated. That's what really matters - not the name.
The following user says Thank You to RideTheCurve for this post:
If you sent emails from your new address I am not getting them, even in my spam folder. What is io anyway? Is that a country code? I am guessing my email provider thinks it needs to be blocked. Sorry if you mentioned this earlier in this thread.
Yes I was pretty sure you sent it. My email provider does not like it for some reason. I wish it would put it in spam at least, instead of blocking it. Oh well....
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,780 since Jun 2009
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You should contact them. All of our emails are DKIM signed with SPF. There is zero reason for them to nuke an email without notifying you. Also, given they posted a 250 OK status, I really think they received it properly. Check your config.
Well here is something weird. I just got email notification that you quoted my posts. Weird that I would get those but not your announcement email. Anyway, glad I got something
The following user says Thank You to BeachTrader for this post:
Appreciate the way you went ahead and did this. Without getting bogged down in endless discussions with users resistant to change. Users always resist change.
Good job.
The following 2 users say Thank You to suko for this post:
I appreciate the change and even more the very professional way to achieve this - excellent job ! It will have more new visitors to the site looking into the forum in detail, as the new name looks as professional as the forum is.
I trade for many years, and I know a lot of places like this. But none of them comes close regarding the high level of discussion.
Thanks a lot for the many hours you invest into this project !
Best regards, Myrrdin
The following user says Thank You to myrrdin for this post:
For me the change is a good one. But neithertheless imho it wasn't really necessary, even though talking about or referring to this forum people use BMT as a synonym. That synonym is/was like a brand to a very unique forum. People being active in the markets or even trade for a living, they knew BMT and the abbr. BMT was part of many conversations.
Now this will change to 'formerly known as'. But thats no big deal in the end hopefully after some time the new name will be a synonym for that unique forum as the abbr. BMT was. The new name is a good choice.
The following 3 users say Thank You to PK 1 for this post:
Great name, great job of handling the move and inspired decision to brand-switch in advance of all the bulletin board change over work that will take much longer but can now be handled in parallel over a more suitable timeframe.
Cheers
Travel Well
The following 2 users say Thank You to ratfink for this post:
Trading: 6C (Low Margin,) 6E, CL, GC, ES and Maybe DX for smaller tick value
Posts: 1,251 since May 2011
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@Big Mike, Agree that name is good. Also agree BMT has become part of the trading lexicon.
One minor concern is how close your new acronym FIO is to Verizon's FIOS. People may think we are commenting on FIOS and left off the S for stupidity.
BUT a more important comment for you is that my AOL automatically placed some of your emails in SPAM. I had to unspam them. So perhaps you should advise the community to make sure it is not happening to them.
Good luck with the new name AND congratulations on your spectacular monetary success!
The following user says Thank You to jmont1 for this post:
Mike, you will hear a lot of ideas, suggestions, etc.
But, the site needed a name change and that is a fact because BMT suggests some guru everyone follows and admires, when in fact it's a community that shares ideas, methods and helps each other with programming. This is not to say that the respect you are getting from the community is not well deserved, quite the opposite, as an industry professional I always liked your ability to tell the guys what is real and what is a fantasy. Never the less, a generic term for a forum is a great idea. In the end, you must ask all the children their opinions, but you must do what you think is right for the family.
I hope that in the years to come, this forum will cover more platforms, more methods, and will attract more people who actually trade live money. Sometimes they lack the time to post, but their insight and value is priceless. This was reflected this year with your and tiger's posts. To be honest, all these paper trader journals, and the emotional long posts are just repetitive and have stopped providing value for those who actually trade live. This is IMHO.
During the few conversations that we had, you gave me very practical advice which reflects your understanding of the industry. Also, as I said before I appreciate the stage you gave me at Futures.IO (formally, I don't even remember the name, LOL) as I truly like to give people good direction in their trading. So again, thank you.
I wish futures.oi further growth and success.
Matt
Optimus Futures
There is a substantial risk of loss in futures trading. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
Trading futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. You may lose more than your initial investment. All posts are opinions and do not claim to be facts. Please conduct your own due diligence. Use only Risk capital when trading Futures.
1 800 771 6748 local 561 367 8686 email support@OptimusFutures.com
The following 2 users say Thank You to mattz for this post:
I recall that @Big Mike raised the renaming question once before, a year or two ago. I was one of the people who said, no, don't change it, you've got a good, well-recognized brand, don't mess with it.
That was true then, and is true now. The brand "BMT" does have recognition and is (was ) valuable. So there is risk and giving up something in this move to the new name.
However, it wasn't any kind of brand when it started out. It grew into one due to the content and atmosphere and community. All of which are still there.
There may be times when having something of established value holds you back, where you need to outgrow the old thing, whatever it is, to allow the new thing some room. I am a little sad about the old name going away, but not enough to not welcome the new one. I think it is the future (oops, that was not meant as a pun. )
Bob.
The following 2 users say Thank You to bobwest for this post:
Personally i liked the old name , it had some thing different from common "Name"s atleast ( if its the only matter of name change ). Apart from that being nostalgic old things always charmed.
Harvest The Moon Nest The Market
The following 2 users say Thank You to devdas for this post:
I realize I am in the minority, but in the interest of coming clean, I voted against the name change in the recent poll and in an earlier, smaller private poll Big Mike conducted.
I think "hate it" is too strong; I don't feel that way. It'is a good name if a new one needed to be picked, but I didn't see a reason to do this. Also I think diluting the brand BMT didn't help anything.
My concern at this point is that "futures.io" might not work well with search engines. I recall a piece of software I worked with a long time ago called "How". Cute, but good luck goggling up support for it. I hope the new site doesn't have similar problems.
I realize the name needed to change before other site changes could be made, and that is what I look forward to seeing. I know the BMT (or should we now say FIO) website code was a bit moribund, I look forward to it getting cleaned up and perhaps some new features.
While I'm not the biggest fan of the most recent change, I still want to say thanks very much Mike for all of your hard and continued work. My and many others' trading careers would not be the same without you.
The following 3 users say Thank You to bob7123 for this post:
My concern isn't so much that you are using a domain other than .com, more that "futures" is a much more generic term than "Big Mike Trading". It may not matter, I guess we will see...
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,780 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,308 given,
97,567
received
What I found in my analytics research is that less than 5% of people search for "Big Mike" (or variations including "Big Mike Trading"). So basically everyone that was using Google was doing so without using our name.
In other words, no one was searching "Big Mike Trading" on Google. By no one, I mean comparatively speaking to our overall organic search traffic.
I may well have it backwards; a more generic name could drive more traffic to the site. Then again will that be a good thing if there are more "tire kickers"? I guess the future is uncertain. Just like in trading!
The following user says Thank You to bob7123 for this post:
I like the new name, I joined last year and was sceptical of Big Mike's Forum name at first but after seeing the content (especially elite - please don't mix it with regular please) I loved it and got used to BMT. One "grievance" when it comes to the name is that it favours futures (I know forex has a bad wrap and even me I prefer to say currencies than forex) though many people trade 6E which is Euro FX Futures which technically is forex via futures - debatable which fits better and I'm not here to argue - just wanted to get this off my chest... whining is done and now I'm better
Confession corner:
By the way, I trade forex because I cannot afford to trade futures yet
Big congratulations again and thanks for making and keeping this forum the best trading one I've ever seen!
Chris
Consistency over time
The following 3 users say Thank You to chr1s for this post:
Which I wouldn't have heard about septin for this site, regardless of name....
Big Mike,
While we're in the midst of the discussion, I have to ask how big did "taking your name off the marquee" work in your thought process, and how do you see your role going forward?
The following 2 users say Thank You to bob7123 for this post:
Trading: 6C (Low Margin,) 6E, CL, GC, ES and Maybe DX for smaller tick value
Posts: 1,251 since May 2011
Thanks: 1,590 given,
916
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@Big Mike, Similar to my past comment Futures and FIO are not particularly significant for search engines. Perhaps you could ask members to do a few searches each to bring it up in the ratings. This is especially true since I would still consider this site to be a dot com site. NOt even sure what DOT IO is for.
First search came up as: Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the British Indian Ocean Territory. Based on that I may change my original vote of name OK to No Good.
OUCH, my head hurts from that smack in the head -- It is for international location -- Big Mike, I do not think I would have subscribed based on this suffix.
Earlier many would have advised many different things - but now it is what it is -- good luck with FIO DOT IO
The following user says Thank You to jmont1 for this post:
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,780 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,308 given,
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Taking "my name" off never entered my mind, because I never thought of it as having my name on it to begin with. The site has never been about me as an individual.
@jmont1, if you take a look at the Wikipedia page for .io that @bob7123 posted above, and read all the way through, you will see that it is sort of trendy, at least for tech types, and no one really thinks of it in terms of the original Indian Ocean location. It's actually used a lot, and often for start-ups. (I confess that I didn't know that either before I looked it up. )
Basically, people in general just accept the .io, and I imagine that futures.io will be viewed the same way. And apparently Google doesn't care; .io addresses are treated the same as .com....
One less thing to worry about.
Bob.
The following 2 users say Thank You to bobwest for this post:
In terms of the internet and global perspective the country domains aren't really used for counties anymore. I've used .in and other country codes for years. They are an easy way to get the name you want that you can't get in a .com anymore. You can even use them to create interesting names.
The following 2 users say Thank You to tturner86 for this post:
Not relevant and not detrimental to any SEO. Country domains are not negatively impacted via Google. 5-10yra ago maybe. But not today. With the invent of .food, .stocks and other domain extensions this acceptance will continue.
The following 2 users say Thank You to tturner86 for this post:
I had to look for the domain but you nailed it overall. This certainly covers your desire for a much more professional URL, beyond any doubt. Needless to mention the transition is seamless.
The following 2 users say Thank You to blueocean88 for this post:
I think this is a great step forward for the best trading forum on the internet.
@Big Mike I think I speak for many of us when we know and fully understand that this is your 'baby'. You do such an incredible job for the whole trading community as a whole with your tireless work to keep such a good atmosphere going. With the name change it is easy to see the possibilities for brand growth which is great!
Do you see the site growing to the point where you would be adding another moderator to ease the burden on yourself?
The following 3 users say Thank You to DeadCatBounced for this post:
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,780 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,308 given,
97,567
received
Thanks for the kind words.
@sam028 is the only other moderator, he also has full admin rights. In terms of moderating duties, he does help when users Report Posts (spam, promotion, etc) by monitoring those and taking action while I'm away/asleep.
From a growth perspective, what I need help on is content not moderation. For example, hosting webinars. But it's extremely difficult to not do this myself, because I feel engaged in each and every webinar and treat them often as interviews, so obviously I want to be the one conducting the interview. It's difficult to imagine being comfortable allowing someone else to take such an important role
@Big Mike, I see that in the bodies of older journal entries you have replaced mentions of "BMT" with "futures.io, formerly BMT", and it has worked well.
I'm also seeing cases in my journal where I know the original post had a mention of your name, "Big Mike", not as part of "Big Mike's Trading" or anything, and now has nothing at all. I can't recall whether the posts used your name with the "@" or without. Usually I do use "@".
Here are some examples, where I'm sure it had your name, and now does not. They are all in my journal:
Just a quick word, since I have not posted here much lately.
I am tied up with a number of other projects, some trading-related, some not. Right now, and until ???, I am on an extended break from my thread. Sometime, no doubt, I'll get back to …
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,780 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,308 given,
97,567
received
Thanks to everyone who responded to my email blast earlier today asking for help.
About 700 people responded so far, and with that I was able to make some changes to the new YouTube channel that I couldn't do until we crossed the 500 subscriber mark.
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,780 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,308 given,
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Yes of course, "Thumbs up" to the videos you appreciate will help us tremendously. Basically, YouTube ranks search results based on popularity, and one way it measures this is with "Thumbs Up" or engagement rate per video.
Has there been any announcement when it comes to replacing BMT with futures.io in members posts - that's modifying the content (I know no context change) but essentially some posts do not represent what they have typed in at that time (there is no "edited by " note or I'm really blind-if so I do apologise) - don't know moderating policies, and please don't get me wrong here just saying
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,780 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,308 given,
97,567
received
Taking a look at some of the analytics today for the first time since the change (late Friday).
The decision to re-brand the site was difficult, as I've shared in detail, so obviously viewing hard numbers is something that caused a bit of trepidation.
The amount of data I have so far for comparison is extremely small, so no real conclusions can be drawn. It didn't stop me from looking at it, however.
First time visitors: Up 58%
Bounce rate: Improved 17%
New user registrations: Up 33%
Organic search traffic: down 23%
Pageview traffic: Up 27%
Unique pageviews: Up 24%
So all good news except for organic search. I believe it's just a temporary result due to how Google is re-indexing.
But again, it's too soon to draw any conclusion. Will be keeping my eye on this.
Do you have a Google Search Console account for FIO? If not you need to create one, do an XML site map of the site and submit it to Google through the Search Console. Easiest and quickest way to let Google know of updates/changes to your site and get it reindexed.
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,780 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,308 given,
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Your email preferences on the site are set so you don't receive them.
Tapatalk is a poorly designed app. There is no way I could transition it seamlessly. You need to delete the BMT link in tapatalk, and then add a new one for futures.io by loading Chrome or whatever on your phone, then browsing to our website, then clicking the 'open in tapatalk' link at the top.
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,780 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,308 given,
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I was talking about private messages. Tapatalk is working fine and I'm pretty sure I am the only person with a problem on private messages, I think it's a limit that I've hit (>20K PM's).
I will check email preferences but don't remember setting to not receiving emails as I have been getting emails regularly prior. I have new name on Tapatalk now.
Ignore my earlier post - login worked fine once I simply entered the username/password (all buttons are disabled until you start entering data into those fields - duh).
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,780 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,308 given,
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Here is your answer, and also a possible explanation for the reduced organic search. I'm not sure exactly how Google processes transitional URL's while the new ones are being re-indexed. The old URL's all function but are 301 permanent redirects. But there may be a small gap or delay due to re-index, it isn't clear. Anyway it looks like it may take about a month for Google to completely re-index everything...
Google does not reindex with the same speed if you change hosting, 301 redirects, etc. A month sounds right, but do not be alert if it takes a bit more. We have been through the same, but content is content and as long you do not have TXT errors all will return to.....New Highs!
Matt
Trading futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. You may lose more than your initial investment. All posts are opinions and do not claim to be facts. Please conduct your own due diligence. Use only Risk capital when trading Futures.
1 800 771 6748 local 561 367 8686 email support@OptimusFutures.com
The following user says Thank You to mattz for this post:
agreed. It's maddening at times because you think that Google just forgot you when changes do not occur. Our blog used to index in seconds new articles, then we changed hosting, and it took days, now it's hours.
As you add more and more content, Google will index you faster.
In that regards, BMT will index in minutes once all propagates to the new site.
Matt
Trading futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. You may lose more than your initial investment. All posts are opinions and do not claim to be facts. Please conduct your own due diligence. Use only Risk capital when trading Futures.
1 800 771 6748 local 561 367 8686 email support@OptimusFutures.com
The following 2 users say Thank You to mattz for this post:
Load speed matters, yes, but it has nothing to do with crawling in my opinion. Sites that are easy to load will rank higher.
Matt
Trading futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. You may lose more than your initial investment. All posts are opinions and do not claim to be facts. Please conduct your own due diligence. Use only Risk capital when trading Futures.
1 800 771 6748 local 561 367 8686 email support@OptimusFutures.com
The following user says Thank You to mattz for this post:
Yes, but I have found Google preferencing how often they crawl and the amount of pages indexed based on load speed. I had a few clients that had really bad load speeds and their indexation was 30%. After cleaning up their code and reducing http request we got their load speed increased and their indexation rose to almost 80%.
The following 3 users say Thank You to tturner86 for this post:
Will not argue with hands on experience. I am always looking at alternatives to reduce images size, videos, etc
Just as an FYI, all the social media companies are releasing softwares to optimize content across all devices.
This should help speed and SEO as well.
Matt
Trading futures and options involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. You may lose more than your initial investment. All posts are opinions and do not claim to be facts. Please conduct your own due diligence. Use only Risk capital when trading Futures.
1 800 771 6748 local 561 367 8686 email support@OptimusFutures.com
The following user says Thank You to mattz for this post:
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,780 since Jun 2009
Thanks: 32,308 given,
97,567
received
And I've now disabled it again. The username mentions weren't working for some reason. So I've just disabled the cache for now.
I did correct about 200 errant URL's that were pointing to the old domain throughout dozens of HTML templates on the site. Hoping this will improve the Google speed score, because theoretically each lookup would be slower as it had to handle a 301 redirect for some embedded links inside content.
@Big Mike, I'm sure you know this, but in case you didn't, the chatbox and the list of recent posts next to it on the main page have been blank all day, or at least since early this morning.
Just FYI.
Bob.
The following user says Thank You to bobwest for this post:
Why dont you register forex.io. options.io and stocks.io and link them back to futures.io? And commodities.io, may be. Gives you options for growth in those directions in the future.....
Site Administrator Swing Trader Data Scientist & DevOps
Manta, Ecuador
Experience: Advanced
Platform: My own custom solution
Trading: Emini Futures
Posts: 49,780 since Jun 2009
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Those are all taken and not for sale. I paid a high 4 figure sum for futures.io. For over six years, we encouraged forex and stocks, with virtually zero traction or participation from members. We aren't discouraging it now, we are simply acknowledging what our users want to discuss -- futures.
Change to "81-100" and enter your email address, product = webroot, and for notes just say that we are a reputable site that just changed their name from bigmiketrading.com after 6 years.
Blacklist Status
Domain clean by Google Safe Browsing: futures.io
Domain clean by Norton Safe Web: futures.io
Domain clean on Phish tank: futures.io
Domain clean on the Opera browser: futures.io
Domain clean by SiteAdvisor: futures.io
Domain clean by the Sucuri Malware Labs blacklist: futures.io
Domain clean on SpamHaus DBL: futures.io
Domain clean by Bitdefender: futures.io
Domain clean on Yandex (via Sophos): futures.io
Domain clean by ESET: futures.io
The following 3 users say Thank You to tturner86 for this post:
Trading: 6C (Low Margin,) 6E, CL, GC, ES and Maybe DX for smaller tick value
Posts: 1,251 since May 2011
Thanks: 1,590 given,
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@Big Mike, I went and posted positive. Then saw that a good site is marked as "Trustworthy." So anyone else posting the request should use the word trustworthy in their request for change.
The following 2 users say Thank You to jmont1 for this post:
Now the real fun begins. I need to create a list of the old URL's and new URL's, one per video, and then write a script to search and replace the videos on FIO. This is tedious as there are several areas in the database where these URL's appear, so for every single video there are probably 5 or more URL's that have to be updated.
