Traffic Torch Community Help Guide – Torches, Beams, Profiles, Leaderboard & Network

A torch is a public audit result. Every audit you run produces a 0–100 score and a per-module breakdown. When you click Post to Community after an audit, that result becomes a torch: it gets a page, a share image, and a permanent link.

Torches do three things at once:

• Gives you a shareable link. Instead of "I scored 96 on NUSA", you send traffictorch.net/torch/9/ and everyone sees the full breakdown.
• Contributes to the community. Other SEOs browse the feed at /community/ to see what's working and what isn't.
• Ranks you on the leaderboard. If you submit to the leaderboard too, your torch competes with every other audit ever shared.

Nothing is posted automatically. You choose what to share and when. Every torch is opt-in, every field is editable after posting, and every torch can be deleted at any time.

Three kinds of posts

Since the community layer launched, Traffic Torch has grown from one post type to three. All three share the same composer, the same feed, and the same comment system — but each one is built for a different job:

• 🔥 Audit (Torch) — a shared audit result with a score, tool, and module breakdown. The original post type. Covered in sections 2 and 3 below.
• 💬 Discussion — a long-form text post with a title and category. No audit required. Full markdown, up to 6000 characters, up to 5 images. Covered in section 1b.
• ⚙️ Workflow — a versioned record of how you build with AI. Structured stack chips, decisions, pain points, next steps. Covered in section 1c.

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A discussion is a text post that doesn't need an audit behind it. Use it to share an insight, ask a question, publish a finding, or start a debate. Same feed, same comments, same profile — just no score, no tool, no URL required.

What's in a discussion

• Title — up to 120 characters. Bold, headline-driven.
• Category — SEO, UX, or AEO. Matches the feed tabs.
• Body — up to 6000 characters with full markdown support.
• Images — up to 5, resized to 1600px WebP on upload. Drag, drop, or paste.

Markdown support

The composer accepts standard markdown. Live preview is available before you post.

• Bold, italic, inline code, ~~strikethrough~~
• Headings — # through ####
• Ordered and unordered lists, nested lists
• Blockquotes with orange left border
• Fenced code blocks with syntax highlighting — JavaScript, Python, Bash, HTML, CSS, SQL, and more
• Tables, horizontal rules, links (open in new tab with rel="nofollow ugc noopener")
• YouTube + Vimeo auto-embeds — paste a video URL on its own line and it renders as a 16:9 player
• OG preview cards — paste any other URL on its own line and it expands into a rich preview card with title, description, and image

Composer shortcuts

• Write / Preview tabs — toggle between source and rendered markdown
• Cmd/Ctrl + Enter — post without clicking
• Cmd/Ctrl + V — paste an image straight from clipboard
• Inline validation hints tell you exactly what's missing (e.g. "5 more characters")

Editing and deleting

Click Edit on any discussion you posted. The composer reopens with all fields prefilled, including images and category. Click Delete to remove the post and its comments permanently.

Public page

Every discussion gets its own public page at /torch/:id/ with a styled DiscussionForumPosting schema for search engines and a distinct purple-bordered card in the feed.

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A workflow is a versioned record of how you build with AI. Tools change fast — what worked in January is obsolete by October. A workflow post is a snapshot: your stack, your process, your decisions, and what you're testing next. Post v2, v3, v4 over time and you build a timeline of your own evolution that other developers can learn from.

What's in a workflow

• Version — a short label like v1.0 or 2026-Q1.
• Summary — a one-line description (up to 300 chars).
• Stack chips — 10 categories, up to 12 tools each.
• Body — full markdown workflow steps, up to 6000 characters.
• Advanced sections (optional) — decisions, pain points, next steps, repo URL.
• Images — up to 5 setup screenshots.

The 10 stack categories

Presets and free text

Every category has preset suggestions, but you're never locked in. Type anything into the input — a tool we haven't listed, a custom in-house script, an obscure terminal emulator — and it becomes a chip. The composer stores whatever you type, so the format never holds you back.

The Adopt button

Every workflow card in the feed has a 📋 Adopt this workflow button. Click it and a clean markdown summary of the entire stack — every chip, every category, the repo URL — is copied to your clipboard. Paste it into your own notes, a PR description, or a team wiki.

Public page and schema

Each workflow gets a public page at /torch/:id/ with an ⚙️ Workflow details panel showing all chip categories, the decisions, pain points, and next steps. A distinct purple-bordered card appears in the feed, and the page emits an Article JSON-LD schema with the stack keywords extracted from the AI models and tools you listed.

Why it's useful

• For readers — see what actually works on real hardware, not just sponsored lists.
• For you — a personal changelog of your own stack. Post v4 and compare to v1.
• For search engines — structured data with real tool names, filtered by category, and cross-linked to other workflows on the same tools.
• For the community — the fastest way to find out what an "AI dev workflow" actually looks like on a 2016 Mac vs an M2 Max vs a Linux VM.

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You don't need an account to run an audit. You do need one to post a torch, because a torch is tied to your public profile.

The four-step flow

1. Run any audit on any page. The dashboard is at /dashboard/, or use any of the standalone tool pages.
2. Wait for the results to come in. Most audits finish in 10–30 seconds.
3. Click Post to Community below the score.
4. Fill in the optional note (up to 360 characters) and choose a domain mode. Submit.

The composer

Every post type shares one composer. When you open it from the feed, you'll see a type selector at the top — 💬 Discussion or ⚙️ Workflow. From a completed audit, the composer prefills with the audit details and posts directly as a torch.

The composer supports:

• Markdown with a Write / Preview toggle
• Images — up to 5, drag-drop, paste, or click 📎
• Cmd/Ctrl + Enter to post without clicking
• Auto-embeds — YouTube and Vimeo URLs become players, other URLs become OG preview cards
• Live validation hints — tells you exactly what's missing before you click Post
• 6000 character body limit, up from the original 360

Editing after posting

You can edit the note, category, and page title at any time from the feed. Just click Edit on your own torch card. Deleting a torch is equally easy — click Delete and the torch disappears from the feed, the leaderboard, and any sitemap within seconds.

One torch per audit, or re-share?

Each audit produces one torch. If you re-run the audit later and want to share the new score, you can post a new torch. Old torches stay linked to their original score so history isn't rewritten.

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Every torch has its own page at /torch/:id/. It's the page you send to someone when you say "look at this audit".

What's on a torch page

• The score, in a colour-coded circle: green above 80, amber 60–79, red below 60.
• The domain and page title, so readers know what was audited.
• The note you wrote — up to 360 characters of your own commentary.
• The module breakdown, every individual signal and its score, in the same format as the audit itself.
• The author chip — a link back to your profile, plus your points.
• Endorse button — appears in the action row for anyone whose score is 80 or higher.
• Comments — the same threading as the community feed.
• Author tab — bio, socials, stats, and a link to your full profile.
• Network tab — the author's own connections, if they're public.

What happens after you share

When you paste the URL into Slack, Discord, or X, the recipient sees a rich preview: the score, the domain, and the page title on a dark gradient card with Traffic Torch branding. That image is generated on the fly for every torch, so you never have to make one.

Search engines see the torch too

Torch pages are fully server-rendered and indexed. They include structured data that tells Google the page is a technical article about the audited URL, authored by you. If a torch gets linked from outside, it can appear in search results on its own — which is a very cheap way to make your audit page findable.

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Every account gets a profile at /torcher/:username/. It's a single page that shows everything you've chosen to make public.

What shows on your profile

• Display name, @username, role and role badge.
• Tier ring around your avatar — grey for free, orange→pink for Pro, purple for Enterprise. One glance tells readers your account level.
• Bio — up to 160 characters.
• Skills chips — up to 8 self-declared skills (e.g. Technical SEO, AEO, Local SEO), rendered as pills under your bio.
• Contacts card — up to 3 public contact methods (email, WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, Signal, Phone, LinkedIn, X, or any URL). Values are hidden behind a click-to-reveal button by default.
• Hire Me card — an optional "available for hire" panel with a headline, up to 6 service chips, and a mailto button.
• Verified ✓ tick — appears next to your website link once you've proven ownership.
• Job title, company, location — optional, editable.
• Social links — one website and up to two socials.
• Stats — 🔥 audits shared, 🤝 network size, 🏅 points, ⭐ endorsements received, 📅 months on the site.
• Five tabs — Shared Audits, Network, Activity, About, plus the Discover grid inside the Network tab.

What you control

From the profile edit page you can set:

• Avatar — three presets or your own uploaded photo (we resize to 400×400, max 15 MB).
• Skills — up to 8 chips, 24 characters each.
• Contacts — up to 3 rows, each one of: email, WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, Signal, phone, LinkedIn, X / Twitter, or any URL. Plus a toggle for click-to-reveal (default) vs always visible.
• Hire Me — availability toggle, 60-char headline, up to 6 service chips, public contact email.
• Verification — a one-click button generates a meta tag you paste into your site's <head>. Once verified, a green ✓ appears next to your website link.
• Profile visibility — public (indexable) or private (404 for strangers).
• Show or hide your network — whether your connections list appears on the page.
• Allow or block network adds — turn off incoming network requests.
• Auto-share new audits — post every completed audit to the feed automatically.

Everything from Skills down lives in the ⚙️ Advanced (optional) section inside your Edit Profile form — collapsed by default so the everyday fields stay front and centre. Nothing new appears on your public profile unless you actually fill it in.

Why profile SEO matters

Public profiles are indexed with structured data. If you're an SEO, designer, or developer who publishes audits regularly, your profile becomes a discoverable landing page for your name. Anyone searching "<your name> SEO audit" can find your audit history in one click.

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Discover is a grid of people you're not connected to yet — a way to find new SEOs, designers, and site owners to follow. It's built into your dashboard's Profile and Network tabs, and the wider grid on the Network tab shows up to 24 cards at a time.

How it works

• Every day the site picks 24 users you're not connected to, seeded by your user ID.
• You see the same 24 all day. The list reshuffles at 11:00 UTC (21:00 AEST).
• Users who posted a torch in the last 30 days rank first.
• Click 🎲 Randomize to bypass the daily seed and get a fresh set instantly.

What's on each card

Avatar, display name, @username, role badge, points (🏅), torch count (🔥), and a + Add button. Clicking + Add sends a network request and removes the card from your grid.

Who you'll see

• Public profiles only — users who set their profile to private are excluded.
• Users you're not already connected to.
• Users who haven't blocked you and who you haven't blocked.
• You never see yourself.

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Your network is the list of other Traffic Torch users you've connected with. It's a simple, one-way opt-in system: you add someone, they get a notification, and both of you appear in each other's Network tab.

How to add someone

• On any torch page, click + Add to Network on the author chip.
• On any profile page, click the same button in the header.
• Or go to /dashboard/ → Network → Find People and search by display name or @username.

What the network gives you

• Faster identification. In the community feed, posts from your network are flagged with "In Network ✓" so you know whose work you're looking at.
• Priority filtering. On your own profile, the Network tab is a one-click shortcut to everyone you follow.
• Visible social proof. Your network count appears in your stats alongside your points.

Removing someone

Click In Network ✓ on their torch, or Remove on their row in your Network tab. It's instant and doesn't notify them.

The invite option

Not on Traffic Torch yet? Use /dashboard/ → Invite to send someone a signup link by email. They'll get a friendly email naming you, with a link to your profile and a one-click signup.

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Beams are Traffic Torch's private one-to-one messages. Unlike torches and comments — which are public — Beams are between you and one other user. No one else can read them.

How to open Beams

• Desktop: click 🔦 Beams in the sidebar, then choose Inbox from the dropdown.
• Mobile: open the menu (☰), tap 🔦 Beams, then Inbox.
• From a profile: click ✉️ Send Message on the header of anyone's /torcher/:username/ page. This opens a new Beam with them straight away.

The drawer slides in from the right of the screen and stays on top of whatever page you're viewing, so you never lose your place.

Sending a message

1. Tap or click the message field at the bottom of the drawer.
2. Type up to 2,000 characters.
3. Press Enter or Send. On desktop, Shift+Enter adds a new line without sending.

Reading and replying

• The Inbox shows every conversation, newest first, with an unread badge.
• Tap any row to open the thread.
• Your messages appear on the right in orange; the other person's appear on the left.
• Replies to a specific message show a small ↩ reply indicator above the bubble.
• Messages are marked read automatically when you open the thread.

Attachments

Use the 📎 icon to attach a file. Up to three attachments per message, each 5 MB maximum. Supported types include images (JPEG, PNG, GIF, WebP, SVG), documents (PDF, TXT, MD, CSV), code (HTML, CSS, JS, JSON, XML) and ZIP archives. Attachments are stored on Cloudflare R2 and streamed back to you or the recipient only, protected by your JWT.

Reactions, deleting and mute

• Reactions. Hover or tap +😀 on any message and pick an emoji. Reactions show as pills under the message and update in real time for both users.
• Deleting. The 🗑 icon next to your own messages removes them for both sides. The other person sees them disappear.
• Muting. Click the 🔔/🔇 toggle in the header of any thread to silence notifications for that person without removing the conversation.

Delivery

Beams deliver instantly via a live WebSocket connection. When you're on the site or the PWA, new messages pop into the drawer without a refresh. If you're away, they queue up as notifications — see below.

Message notifications

Every new Beam arrives in your dashboard notification list (the 🔔 section on your Profile tab). Click 🔦 Open Beam → on any message notification and the drawer opens directly on that conversation, scrolled to the newest reply.

Controlling who can Beam you

Go to /dashboard/ → Settings → Direct Messages. You have three options:

• 🌍 Anyone — any logged-in user can message you (this is the default).
• 🕸️ My network only — only people you've added to your network can message you.
• 🚫 Nobody — turn off Beams completely. Incoming messages get a polite refusal.

Below those options you'll also find a Hard-block all messages checkbox — an emergency off switch that overrides the setting above no matter what. Use it when you want to close the door temporarily without touching the main preference.

Push notifications

Beams can notify you outside the site. When you enable push on a device, you'll get a native notification for new messages even when Traffic Torch is closed.

• Look for the 🔔 Turn on push notifications for this device banner on your Profile tab, and click Enable now.
• Or go to Settings → Push Notifications (this device) and toggle the switch.
• Below the toggle you'll find four checkboxes — comments, network connections, leaderboard updates and direct messages — so you can decide exactly which events wake you up.
• On iPhone, push only works after adding Traffic Torch to your Home Screen. The banner on the Profile tab links to the iOS install instructions.

Rate limits

To keep the system healthy, Beams are limited to 20 per minute and 200 per day per user. If you hit either limit the send button will show a short refusal message and you can try again shortly.

Privacy at a glance

• No one besides you and the recipient can read your Beams.
• Deleting a thread or a message removes it from both sides.
• Read messages older than 30 days and soft-deleted messages older than 7 days are purged automatically.
• Attachments you upload are only downloadable by participants in the conversation.

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The Activity feed is a live timeline of what everyone has been doing on Traffic Torch. It's a lightweight social signal: you can see who's active, what they're posting, and what they're commenting on — without having to search for it.

What gets logged

Where you'll see it

• Dashboard → Profile → Activity — your own events only.
• Dashboard → Network → Activity — your network's aggregated feed with full filters.
• /torcher/:username/ → Activity tab — public read-only view on any user's profile page.

How far back it goes

Each user keeps their latest 24 events only. Older events are trimmed automatically in the same transaction that inserts a new one, so the feed stays fast and never grows unbounded.

Filters (Network tab)

Grouping and dividers

Events are grouped by day — Today, Yesterday, then dated headers. When you return after being away, an "Earlier" divider marks where the new items end and the ones you've already seen begin. Rapid bursts on the same torch collapse into a single card with an × N badge.

Click-to-filter

Click any username to filter the feed to just that person. Click a category pill (UX, SEO, AEO) on a torch event to filter by category. Click a tool pill to filter by tool. A chip at the top shows the active filter — click the × to clear it.

Making it private

Your activity is public by default. To hide it, go to Dashboard → Profile → Edit Profile and tick "Keep my activity private". Other users — including anonymous visitors — will see a lock icon and the message "This user keeps their activity private" instead of your timeline.

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Traffic Torch has two related systems: points (per user) and the leaderboard (per audit submission). They're separate but complementary.

How points are earned

Points are additive and permanent. They appear next to your name on every torch, comment, and network row. There's no expiry, no decay, and no cap.

How the leaderboard works

The /leader-board/ page ranks every audit that a user has explicitly submitted. When you click Submit to Leaderboard on a completed audit, that score enters the running. Re-running the audit keeps the higher of the two scores.

• Podium — the top 3 all-time, with medals.
• Hall of Fame — the top 12, expandable to more.
• Filter by tool — 16 tabs, one per tool, plus "All Tools".
• Top Contributors — the community members with the most points, separate from raw audit scores.
• ⭐ Endorsement counts — top users display 🏅 points · ⭐ endorsements side-by-side on the podium and Hall of Fame rows.

Embedding the #1 badge

If your site ever takes the #1 spot, the leaderboard page generates an embeddable badge you can paste on your own site. It auto-updates as your rank changes, and links back to the leaderboard.

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Every leaderboard page shows a Top Contributors panel alongside the score ranking. It's a different kind of list: instead of who has the best audit, it shows who has given the most back to the community.

Who ends up on it

Anyone who has earned at least one point appears. The ranking is by total points, then by contribution count, then by user ID for stability. Contributors who submit a bug report, a feature idea, a docs fix, or a tool enhancement of their own are featured with a bio snippet, role badge, and links to their site and socials.

Why contribute?

• Points — 25 per contribution, the highest single-action award on the site alongside endorsements.
• Profile promotion — contributors are showcased publicly with a link back to their profile, and most list their company or site.
• Direct impact — every accepted bug, feature, or docs fix ships in the next release. Contributors are credited in the changelog.

How to submit

Use the contribution form from any tool page, or the footer's Contact link. Describe what you found or what you want to see, pick a category (bug, feature, feedback, or docs), and submit. Contributions are reviewed manually, but most get a response within a day or two.

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Not every audit is meant for public eyes. Traffic Torch gives you three domain modes when posting a torch so you can control exactly how much is revealed.

The three modes

Hiding your Activity feed

In the same Edit Profile form, the "Keep my activity private" toggle hides your Activity timeline from every other user — including anonymous visitors to your public profile. Your own dashboard keeps working normally.

Hiding your Beams

Beams are private by default — no one but you and the recipient can read them. To close the door entirely, use /dashboard/ → Settings → Direct Messages and choose Nobody, or tick Hard-block all messages. Both are reversible at any time.

What is never stored

• Your email address is never public.
• Your IP address is never logged or stored in the audit tables.
• The HTML of audited pages is never kept after the score is computed.
• Your location, if you fill it in, is free text you typed — not derived from IP.

Deleting a torch

Click Delete on any torch you posted. It disappears from the feed, the leaderboard, all sitemaps, and any OG image within seconds. The URL 404s. Nothing is soft-deleted for more than the cache TTL.

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Every public stream on Traffic Torch has an RSS feed. Subscribe in your reader of choice and you'll see new torches as they're posted without touching the site.

The three feeds

What's in the feed

Each item contains the torch title, the audited domain, the score, the note, and a link back to the torch page. Feeds update within seconds of a new torch being posted, and every feed entry is a permanent link.

Autodiscovery

Every profile page and every tool feed page has an autodiscovery tag in its HTML head, so most feed readers will find the right URL automatically when you paste in the page's web address.

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Scores tell you what an audit measured. Endorsements tell you what the community thought of it. When a torch scores 80 or higher, other users can endorse it — and every endorsement sends +36 points to the author plus a public ⭐ count on their profile. It's the human signal that sits alongside the machine signal.

Where endorsements appear

• Feed torches — a ⭐ Endorse button sits next to "More details" on every shared audit that scored 80+.
• Torch pages — the same button appears in the action row on /torch/:id/, next to "+ Add to Network" and "⚑ Report".
• Profile stat grid — the ⭐ Endorsements cell shows the total received across all their torches.
• Leaderboard podium and Hall of Fame — top-ranked users display 🏅 points · ⭐ endorsements side-by-side.
• Activity feed — every endorse event renders with a ⭐ icon and links back to the endorsed torch.
• Notifications — the author gets a bell notification with a ⭐ icon: "<name> endorsed your torch (+36 points)".

The rules

Endorsements are deliberately scarce so they mean something. Five conditions apply, all enforced server-side:

1. Score must be 80+. The button is greyed out and unclickable on anything lower.
2. You cannot endorse your own torch. Your own posts never show the button to you.
3. Account must be 24 hours old. New accounts can't endorse — this stops drive-by farming.
4. One endorsement per day per user. Once you endorse one torch, you cannot endorse any other torch for the next 24 hours.
5. One endorsement per user per torch, ever. You cannot re-endorse a torch you've already endorsed, and there is no undo (this prevents endorsement-toggle gaming).

What the author gets

• +36 points on their profile stat grid.
• An entry in the public ⭐ count on their profile and on the leaderboard.
• A notification naming who endorsed which torch.
• An activity event visible on their profile timeline.

Tier rings & role badges

Your avatar carries two immediate trust signals:

• Tier ring — a thin coloured ring around your avatar. Grey for Free, orange→pink gradient for Pro, purple for Enterprise. Visible everywhere your avatar appears.
• Role badge — the pill next to your @username (Website Owner, Web Designer, SEO Professional, Developer, Member). Set once in Edit Profile.

Verified domain badge

If you own a website, you can verify it — a small green ✓ then appears next to your website link on your profile. It's a simple, honest signal: "this person controls the site they're linking to". Verification is one-click:

1. Add your website URL in Edit Profile.
2. Open ⚙️ Advanced → 🔐 Verify your website → click Verify now.
3. A meta tag is generated. Copy it with one click.
4. Paste it into your site's <head> and click Verify now again.

If you change your website URL later, verification resets automatically — you'll need to re-verify with the new domain.

Skills & Hire Me

Two extra blocks help people understand what you do and whether you're available:

• Skills — up to 8 chips under your bio. Good examples: "Technical SEO", "AEO", "Local SEO", "Schema", "Core Web Vitals", "Content", "Link Building", "UX", "CRO", "Analytics". Free-form — add anything up to 24 characters.
• Hire Me — a slim card under your stats, only visible when the availability toggle is on and at least one field is filled. Includes a headline, up to 6 service chips, and a public contact email rendered as a mailto button (never shown as plain text).

Contacts & anti-scraping

Up to 3 public contact methods: email, WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat, Signal, phone, LinkedIn, X / Twitter, or any custom URL. By default, values are rendered as a "🔒 click to reveal" button — the actual address only loads after you click, and it's never present in the initial HTML. Naive scrapers and crawlers see nothing. If you'd rather make them always visible, toggle "Show contacts immediately" in the editor.

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