Growing GP: Site slowdowns and upgrades

You may have noticed that over the last month, Gamers' Plane has been running particularly smoothly. This is mostly because with the GP server hosting OPWeekends, the service I'm building for cons to digitally register and signup for events, which runs AcadeCon, I had to upgrade the server. However, given it literally doubles my cost, I just scaled it back to normal levels. You may have noticed that previously, the site was starting to act up, slowing down, etc, and this last month, it's been running quite well. Unfortunately that means it'll be running meh again.

With GP still growing, I'd like to upgrade the server, which will be part of my code rewrite, which should help reduce server load. It'd be nice to also include some functionality designed to make things run smoother and faster, including some caching tools, but I couldn't do that with our current server.

So it comes down to the unfortunate request: funds. If you're on GP and enjoying your time here, please remember the referral links at the bottom of every page, which if you use, help fund GP. They include:

- Amazon
- DriveThuRPG (and subsequently, all the DriveThru sites)
- Easy Roller Dice Co.

You can also donate directly with the "Support Us" button. A few people donate a few bucks a month which helps me solidly know what I can afford to do for the site. If you can think of any other good services you use that have referral services, recommend it and I'll try to get it up.

The site will always stay up, even if no one's donating (so long as I have an income). But the more help I can get from you guys and gals, the more I can add, like better functionality, hiring designers to make the site look better/more usable (you'd all like the site to be more mobile friendly, don't deny it!), etc.

I want to say thank you for everything. This site is great. Also, I had no idea about the referral links and will try to use them whenever I can. Keep up the hustle, coach!

I have dreams of GP mobile.

So do I! In fact, one of the things I want to learn next is how to create a free-standing desktop app, like Slack, but it'll be easier once the design is more responsive friendly.

I believe you've stated it before but I'm not entirely sure, so for a refresher for me and any new people: how do the referral links work?

Do you need to purchase something from the site or do you get something just when someone clicks on them? Or do you get something for both?

If we only have to click on the links. How often can we click them?

If you need to purchase something. Is there a way to tell if it worked?

They are not click-based links. In fact, those are nearly gone from the web community, as it's too easy to generate a click through scripting. The only remaining click based revenue I know of is through ads, and they typically have advanced logic to help determine if a click is genuine or not, meaning multiple clicks has no added benefit. I have no intention of putting ads on GP any time soon, and even if/when it does happen, it'll be specific ads to gamer/tech/nerdy based stuff.

Rather, when you click on any of those ads, if you add items to your cart and purchase them, Gamers' Plane will get a small portion of the proceeds. Amazon and ERDC are tier based, meaning the more people purchase, the higher a return I get. DTRPG is static.

All three are meant to be "invisible", meaning your experience on the site after going through the referral won't affect your experience on the site, and thus you don't know if it "worked". If you're concerned, you can always send me a PM or email, and I can check.

Okay, thank you for clearing that up. I honestly wouldn't mind ads after all you and this site have done, one could easily go right here and be completely non-intrusive and get you a few extra shekels.

Unfortunately, the site is still too small for ads to make any difference. You need hundreds of clicks to earn a few cents. thousands to earn a dollar. GP, while growing, gets about 2k hits a month (and it's actually been decreasing as of late, though I'm not sure why).

Holidays probably.

I'm not sure how SEO stuff works, but maybe you can use social media (YT, instagram, twitter, etc.) to help grow the site. It'd be an extra work load, but could help generate clicks. I'm not sure if the site does have social media, to be honest lol. Idk, just an idea!

October isn't typically a big holiday month.
If you mean for ad revenue, the site would need over 20x the current traffic with eryone clicking ads multiple times to cover monthly costs, of that was the only source of income. Plus, the server wouldn't be able to handle all that traffic. On the other hand, a decent holiday purchase on Amazon can earn $0.50 to $2, depending on what's bought. A few purchases on the referral links plus a few monthly donations would cover far more stablely.

Aa for social media, I'm pretty active on Twitter, but I don't have the time with a full time job, coding this site and other projects, and being at least a little social to cover all the social media on my own. There's just not enough time in the day.

Probably because I have less time to visit :P

I used to game at Myth-Weavers and they would do a donation drive to raise the funds needed for the year. Maybe something to do if you're not getting the monthly donations you need.

Till now, I've been getting sufficient donations and use of the referral links to fund the site at it's current level + a bit more to help cover some con costs (where I promote GP). I have noticed that not everyone notices the referral links at the bottom, so an occasional reminder that they're there and how they work doesn't hurt, specially since now we're talking about increasing resources so the site runs better for everyone. I should bump the How to help GP thread as well.

Because I'm the admin and thus can do as I like, bumping this as I progress into the new site :)

I clicked your Amazon link above and it took me right back to the gamersplane homepage. If I click the Amazon Referral Link below, it has be select a charity. There really seems to be no way to tell if the referral is working. Also, my wife buys a LOT of stuff through Amazon from her phone, will the referral link work through the Amazon app?

A little while back, I changed the links due to some bugs in the short links. The ones at the bottom are correct; it asks about a charity as I link to Amazon Smile, which donates part of some sales to the charity you select. It costs you nothing more. As for the app, I'm not sure and can look into it.

Additional question, do you know if we have to click the referral link every time we go shopping on Amazon or do we click it once and our account is forever "linked" to your referral until we click a referral from someplace else? I can get my wife to do it once, but to remember to do it before she shops every time, not likely.

I cannot say for sure, not having searched extensively, but my understanding is it's cookie based, so it'll be vaild on smile.amazon.com until either the cookie expires, all your cookies expire, or you overwrite it with another referral link.