Welcome back to the Hack Forum News. Where we keep you up to date on the weekly events and news happening on site and around the world. If you have never heard of the Hack Forum News, don't worry, we have you covered. We are a team of members from the Hack Forums community who are journalists and writers, and we are here to keep you in the loop of the changes around the site and the events happening around the world.
[mention=1] has created a thread regarding the way guests who have not signed up to the site recently. With this change, guests who have not got an account can now view any thread but will be limited to the first page and wont be able to see all replies moving forward. This change may get a little change again, but this is just the start of the week of changes marked off the HF roadmap.
Google has once again been a little mean to the site. As some of you know, this has been something Google has been doing with the site since 2023. Google has made the discovery of the site a little bit of a pain due to the reviews they have made and stating that, due to their higher expectations, the site still wont be changed to allow the best results for the site under the news and discover side of the search engine. [mention=1] has stated this was one of the reasons why blogs were removed from the site but as this change hasn't made any difference within the review blogs have now returned via https://hackforums.net/blog.php
The Hack Forums [url=//hackforums.net/misc.php?action=help]Help Docs[/url] have now been updated with a new formatting. This has been something that was on the roadmap for a little while and, with AI making things easier these days. The documents have been updated to make things a little more clear for everyone to follow. Some of the default MyBB parts have been removed due to not being needed here.
A new plugin has been added to the site thanks to the member [mention=5674562] The new plugin has added the Markdown code formatting which will allow many new features on the site for threads. This plugin will allow members to make formatting things a little easier for everyone's eyes.
The Hack Forums Wiki has returned. The site has been under some work recently as the site was sadly left with a load of issues and no one was running the official site. Thanks to everyone within the HF news team, the site is now under new leadership and, thanks to [mention=1] allowing the team to start their work on this while maintaining the HF news, the site is back getting some lovely changes and getting updated daily to bring it back to a new modern day Wikipedia with a load of information for everyone to read up on.
Are you looking to join the HF news team? Do you enjoy making threads or even want to become a better writer? Well, we are looking for members of the site to help write each week and are looking for anyone who has any interest. We have a few new sections opening up right now, and we would love for you to see if they would be anything of interest to you. If you are interested, please check out the thread or contact [mention=2331053] to discuss joining the team behind the HF News.
Writer - [mention=2331053]
[mention=221302] Has obtained the "King Decade" award -
[mention=1061502] Has obtained the "King Decade" award -
[mention=66686] Has obtained the "King Decade" award -
[mention=2863328] Has obtained the "King Decade" award -
[mention=139340] Has obtained the "King Decade" award -
[mention=66686] Has obtained the "Green Apple" award -
The group Quantum is hosting another giveaway offering two lucky winners a chance at winning $250 and the award "Blazing Ember"
The second winner will get a prize of $150 and everyone has a great chance at the contest. If you have not already joined the contest, this might be a great time to check it out and get a chance at winning the exclusive award as the giveaway ends on the 31st of January.
The member [mention=5649707] is hosting the biggest crypto giveaway of 2026 so far on the site. There will be six winners each getting $25 in crypto. The winners will be announced on the 25th of January 2026. The winners will be randomly picked by a staff member on the site and everyone can enter more than once aswell, meaning everyone can increase their chance of winning.
The member [mention=811] is hosting a little bit of a different giveaway that is quite fun. They are hosting the giveaway with the way to enter is to post on the thread your current post count and, once you have entered all your posts on site, count towards the giveaway. So one post is equal to $1 and the more you post, the more money you could win. The giveaway ends on the 30th of January
I have added a plugin (vibe coded) that only displays the first post of a thread to guests. A few days ago I removed the restriction for guests to view threads but I did have in mind to take this next step. I find it's a more elegant solution than hiding content on each post but also allowing advertisers to get more views. If a guest wants to see replies (which they likely do for sales threads) then joining is just what they'll do.
View HF in a Incognito Mode to see for yourself but it will look like this:
Please note we dropped from 300 registrations per day with required registration to just 100 registrations per day with guest viewing. In a few days I'll update this thread with what the new numbers look like.
Thank you and enjoy.
P.S. Going to be a big dev week, planning on getting things off the Roadmap.
HF's Help Docs are now completely updated with new formatting. Ran each through AI to alter the html and make them more uniform. Also deleted some of the documents which were default MyBB and didn't really seem helpful.
Google periodically reviews sites to ensure that Google offers an excellent experience for our users.
Google has higher expectations and standards for content served on our Discover feed and News surfaces. Therefore, our Discover and News policies include additional behavioral and content rules that don't apply to web results and non-News surfaces.
Upon a recent review, Google identified policy violating behavior related to our Transparency or Deceptive Practices policies, which requires that publishers provide clear dates and bylines, as well as information about authors, editorial boards, ownership, primary purpose, and relationships with other publishers and entities, and non-generic contact information.
Because of the violation, your site is no longer eligible to appear on News or Discover surfaces. These actions don't affect how your site or pages appear on Search outside of News and Discover surfaces, including Search web results.
What you can do next:
1
Recommended actions
Review and update your pages to comply with the Transparency and Deceptive Practices guidelines in our News policies and Discovery policies. Simple deletion of violating content will not be considered as a reason to lift a manual action.
2
Submit a reconsideration request
Once you’ve fixed the page, updated your editorial guidelines, or if you think an error has been made, file for reconsideration. Include any details or documentation that can help us understand the changes made to your site and editorial practices with the specific reasons you think your site is no longer in violation. Reconsideration requests must be submitted within 2 weeks of receipt of this notification and we allow a maximum of 2 reconsideration requests per manual action. If you take no further action or if your reviews are unsuccessful, this manual action will remain active for 6 months, at which time you may file an additional reconsideration request.
This is when I got rid of the Blogs thinking it was the problem. HF is anonymous for most members, I think Google wants the Authors names and "transparency", which given our sites nature of privacy.
Twice now I've attempted to make the adjustments and waited for the response. I just now got another denial. Looks to me like we're not getting rid of that. Since I removed the Blogs for this, I have enabled them again. Not sure what the future holds for our Blog system but I don't see how it can harm HF.
Please note the Manual Penalty doesn't effect Google Search Results. It's only their News and Discovery which if pretty much the Mobile users who open things like Google News and have feeds to see new stuff. HF is still in the search engine just fine.
SEO, it's so much for nowadays.
Enjoy the return of the blogs. I have to find a link placement, I really didn't like the old one. https://hackforums.net/blog.php
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![[Image: awards-yellow.png]](https://hackforums.net/images/hfnews/awards-yellow.png)
![[Image: contests.png]](https://hackforums.net/images/hfnews/contests.png)
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