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Hello Everyone 
My name is Jibola, also known as Jay Smart. A self-taught website developer since 2020.
My dreams? It's not clearly defined, but I always imagine myself as someone who's popular and powerful. Anywhere I go, people hail me. But here's the unknown story: I'm an introvert. It's tricky, right? I'm an introvert, but my future self sees people praising me and being happy when they feel my presence. Because people hailing me doesn't mean I will end up as a celebrity since I'm an introvert. 0 friends, no family love... just me and my phone 24/7.
Let's rewind.
2020: I launched a music blog where people could download mp3s. I always hunted upcoming artists on social media and charged 1,000 naira per track. Because to them, showing up on Google was a mission, so blogging their songs helped them. I made about 3,000 to 5,000 naira daily. I even partnered with DJs; they used my site name in mixtape jingles, and I handled the blogging in return... that's how we rolled then. But I never took the business or the website seriously, maybe because I can build it and it looks easy to me... I always took it as a joke. Sometimes I sold the blog to other bloggers for 30k. I wanted to make a comeback, but Spotify and Audiomack had already taken over. Nobody downloads mp3s to their device anymore... so it became useless.
2022: I launched a social media platform with Wowonder. I saw one upcoming and fast-rising content creator on Facebook who liked my work and offered to advertise me for 3,000 naira. I paid, and he told his followers. In that one day, I got 2k registered users. I made friends on the platform, some were asking for features, and it was active and buzzing. But I was on shared hosting... one night, I was sleeping (because I already had some mods and friends working as a team), but due to many people being online that night, my shared hosting reached its bandwidth limit. To cut the story short, I ran out of funds to continue the platform.
2023: I launched a forum for fun. I didn't take it seriously. I launched an IPS forum for webmasters and decided to share resources... it was fun at first. Until I got my hands on one premium file from doniaweb worth $299 and decided to not list it for free... I tagged it at $70.
First month, second month, third month... I made my first dollar, and it was $70 (which was 65,000 naira then). The money was huge for a small boy like me. I saw it big. I became motivated to keep the forum going.
I was on free hosting actually. A friend from Nepal offered me hosting. In return, I gave him VIP membership on the platform where he could download anything and even advertise his hosting to my members. Because the partnership looked promising—people who download scripts may need hosting. Until... he betrayed me and took my site down. No backup, no warning. Just gone one day.
By then, the forum was 9 months old... and I had made about $1k in total. I never understood the business. I spent money whenever I made a sale to buy Free Fire accounts with Evo guns, dope skins, caching fun, dressing well with drip, etc. But everything stopped when my forum was gone.
The domain was still connected to the account so I couldn't move on. Even when the domain expired, the price to redeem it was still high for me to pay. I bought a cheap domain, trying to make a comeback... but Google said no, he wouldn't index me. 5 days, 2 weeks of not seeing my site being indexed made me keep closing it, retrying, closing... I kept going in a loop.
Sept 20, 2026: The domain that I used for the forum back then became available online again to register, now for 3,000 naira. I seized the opportunity to secure it again without thinking twice. I went to Ubersuggest to check my backlink history to see if it still remained. Back then it was 200k, but now, 32k still remained.
Before, I use the domain. I installed WordPress on it, wrote junk and useless posts to see if Google would still ignore me like he treated me in the past when I tried to make a comeback. But 6 hours later, 8 pieces of content were indexed. I was so happy because Google still trusted the domain.
Now, Oct 21,2026 makes it 1 month since I registered the domain back. I've launched on XenForo trying to make a comeback. I moved to WordPress WooCommerce to sell scripts like a digital marketplace, but I keep closing and trying again. On XenForo: 2 weeks, no new members...
The Cons and Pros:
On XenForo, I thought if people saw the forum active, they would join or even make money again from paid files, but 2 weeks, nothing happened. I moved to WordPress, designed it, everything looked modern and amazing, but the con? We all know people would rather trust a forum of active members and buy from them than trust WooCommerce.
Last week, I renewed my hosting. I want to make one final decision and stick to it... either good or bad results... I just want to focus.
Right now, I don't know what to do. The WordPress WooCommerce is still active currently. I've arranged the XenForo files. I've downloaded IPS files. But I don't know which one to make it to the final.
To me, WordPress has lost the battle. Why? Let's have a point of view from my dreams. It echoes "Popular," which means I become popular. WordPress can't make me popular. Only IPS and XenForo win... why? The community. There's a high chance I become known because my growth is popular and helpful to society. But... I don't know if it's XenForo or IPS.
I love to modify scripts because I'm never satisfied. I installed IPS 5 and tried to edit it to my taste, but it's not possible. So if I go back to IPS... I'm definitely choosing IPS 4. But other forums on IPS are on 5... Will I be the only one stuck on 4?
At this point, my final pick is XenForo: 60% and IPS: 40%.
Why? I've run IPS before and I know how to earn... I've tested it and it worked. But XenForo? I've tried it too when I tried to make a comeback, but had Google indexing problems... so actually, XenForo seems light, I love it. But I never made money from it. I know I can sell memberships and paid files too... but I don't know if it really wins.
This is my story. The domain with 32k backlinks is thie. The premium hosting is paid for. The decision is finally made. I'm going all in on XenForo. No more looking back.
Thanks for reading
My name is Jibola, also known as Jay Smart. A self-taught website developer since 2020.
My dreams? It's not clearly defined, but I always imagine myself as someone who's popular and powerful. Anywhere I go, people hail me. But here's the unknown story: I'm an introvert. It's tricky, right? I'm an introvert, but my future self sees people praising me and being happy when they feel my presence. Because people hailing me doesn't mean I will end up as a celebrity since I'm an introvert. 0 friends, no family love... just me and my phone 24/7.
Let's rewind.
2020: I launched a music blog where people could download mp3s. I always hunted upcoming artists on social media and charged 1,000 naira per track. Because to them, showing up on Google was a mission, so blogging their songs helped them. I made about 3,000 to 5,000 naira daily. I even partnered with DJs; they used my site name in mixtape jingles, and I handled the blogging in return... that's how we rolled then. But I never took the business or the website seriously, maybe because I can build it and it looks easy to me... I always took it as a joke. Sometimes I sold the blog to other bloggers for 30k. I wanted to make a comeback, but Spotify and Audiomack had already taken over. Nobody downloads mp3s to their device anymore... so it became useless.
2022: I launched a social media platform with Wowonder. I saw one upcoming and fast-rising content creator on Facebook who liked my work and offered to advertise me for 3,000 naira. I paid, and he told his followers. In that one day, I got 2k registered users. I made friends on the platform, some were asking for features, and it was active and buzzing. But I was on shared hosting... one night, I was sleeping (because I already had some mods and friends working as a team), but due to many people being online that night, my shared hosting reached its bandwidth limit. To cut the story short, I ran out of funds to continue the platform.
2023: I launched a forum for fun. I didn't take it seriously. I launched an IPS forum for webmasters and decided to share resources... it was fun at first. Until I got my hands on one premium file from doniaweb worth $299 and decided to not list it for free... I tagged it at $70.
First month, second month, third month... I made my first dollar, and it was $70 (which was 65,000 naira then). The money was huge for a small boy like me. I saw it big. I became motivated to keep the forum going.
I was on free hosting actually. A friend from Nepal offered me hosting. In return, I gave him VIP membership on the platform where he could download anything and even advertise his hosting to my members. Because the partnership looked promising—people who download scripts may need hosting. Until... he betrayed me and took my site down. No backup, no warning. Just gone one day.
By then, the forum was 9 months old... and I had made about $1k in total. I never understood the business. I spent money whenever I made a sale to buy Free Fire accounts with Evo guns, dope skins, caching fun, dressing well with drip, etc. But everything stopped when my forum was gone.
The domain was still connected to the account so I couldn't move on. Even when the domain expired, the price to redeem it was still high for me to pay. I bought a cheap domain, trying to make a comeback... but Google said no, he wouldn't index me. 5 days, 2 weeks of not seeing my site being indexed made me keep closing it, retrying, closing... I kept going in a loop.
Sept 20, 2026: The domain that I used for the forum back then became available online again to register, now for 3,000 naira. I seized the opportunity to secure it again without thinking twice. I went to Ubersuggest to check my backlink history to see if it still remained. Back then it was 200k, but now, 32k still remained.
Before, I use the domain. I installed WordPress on it, wrote junk and useless posts to see if Google would still ignore me like he treated me in the past when I tried to make a comeback. But 6 hours later, 8 pieces of content were indexed. I was so happy because Google still trusted the domain.
Now, Oct 21,2026 makes it 1 month since I registered the domain back. I've launched on XenForo trying to make a comeback. I moved to WordPress WooCommerce to sell scripts like a digital marketplace, but I keep closing and trying again. On XenForo: 2 weeks, no new members...
The Cons and Pros:
On XenForo, I thought if people saw the forum active, they would join or even make money again from paid files, but 2 weeks, nothing happened. I moved to WordPress, designed it, everything looked modern and amazing, but the con? We all know people would rather trust a forum of active members and buy from them than trust WooCommerce.
Last week, I renewed my hosting. I want to make one final decision and stick to it... either good or bad results... I just want to focus.
Right now, I don't know what to do. The WordPress WooCommerce is still active currently. I've arranged the XenForo files. I've downloaded IPS files. But I don't know which one to make it to the final.
To me, WordPress has lost the battle. Why? Let's have a point of view from my dreams. It echoes "Popular," which means I become popular. WordPress can't make me popular. Only IPS and XenForo win... why? The community. There's a high chance I become known because my growth is popular and helpful to society. But... I don't know if it's XenForo or IPS.
I love to modify scripts because I'm never satisfied. I installed IPS 5 and tried to edit it to my taste, but it's not possible. So if I go back to IPS... I'm definitely choosing IPS 4. But other forums on IPS are on 5... Will I be the only one stuck on 4?
At this point, my final pick is XenForo: 60% and IPS: 40%.
Why? I've run IPS before and I know how to earn... I've tested it and it worked. But XenForo? I've tried it too when I tried to make a comeback, but had Google indexing problems... so actually, XenForo seems light, I love it. But I never made money from it. I know I can sell memberships and paid files too... but I don't know if it really wins.
This is my story. The domain with 32k backlinks is thie. The premium hosting is paid for. The decision is finally made. I'm going all in on XenForo. No more looking back.
Thanks for reading
