ActiveRain Updates - 9.27.13

More exciting updates are here, a few changes and better SEO.  Let's go over a few of the many updates.

Topics
ActiveRain Channels and Categories have been rolled into one and now are called Topics.  13 Topics are available to choose from and each blog post written must have a topic selected.  You'll see this change when you're in the "Write a Blog Post" spot under the "Post To" section.  

Blogs (from the Nav bar)
Here's where you'll see the 13 Topics displayed via Consumer and Professional.  Easily find posts on the topic at hand or click the orange "Search Blogs" to be taken to the blog roll.  Click on a topic and you'll see the new blog snippet view.  The number of comments are now easily seen along with the author's photo, name, title and snippet of post.  The trending topics algorithm we've created to display posts on each of these 13 pages will be updated every 5 minutes to ensure we're displaying the best posts we can.  The algorithm isn't something we're disclosing but takes a number of factors into play.

Blog Post Dates
Blog posts will now have 2 dates: created on and updated on.

Q&A
Users will be required to select a location and topic when asking a question.  This will help users search for similar content relevant to that location and/or topic.  Again, we're working on a better search function across ActiveRain.

Blog Editor
You'll notice a new blog editor when writing a blog post.  We've massively updated the tool bar and options to make your blogs easier to create.  Currently the spell check is not compatible with TinyMCE (the tool bar) and the issue is beyond our control.  For those using Chrome and Firefox you should be able to right-click while in your post to use spell check.  For everyone else, please be patient until the next release or so when we can get it in there.  I suggest copying your work to a word document and spell checking there.

Update: In order to paste content into your blog (from another source like Word) you will need to use the (control + v) command. Or if you are using a Mac, you would do (command + v). This will allow you to paste. You currently can not paste using the 'file' dropdown option. 

Associates
We asked and with an overwhelming "get rid of it" response, we have removed all associate pages.  If you had any Associates Only posts, they are now in Draft form and will need to be edited to either Members Only or Public in order to be live.  Check your "View Drafts" link to check.

Groups
Any group that hasn't had activity within the last 6 months has been deleted.  Group moderators were notified of this weeks ago and had a chance to save their group if so inclined.  We need to clean up Groups and this is the first step in that move.

SEO
Last but definitely not least, SEO updates.  Removal of extra links, bad HTML, better redirects and tons more technical updates have been made. Google continues to update their algorithm and we have a whole team working on getting ahead of those changes as best as possible.

 

Update: We have gotten reports that points are not being awarded for logging in. We are working on that right now. 

Update: We also realize that adding images isn't working as it should be. There is currently no way to wrap text around an image using the 'right' or 'left' justification for an image. We are looking at that as well and hope to have a fix very soon

 

Thank you AR Community for being amazing and as always contact us at 888.643.3837 or support@activerain.com with any questions.

 

 

 

 

Keep Up In the Rain!