Suggestion: Boosting Our Google Placement

[Ray]

As some may have noticed already, a Google search for "fanfiction forum" places oTFF in the very first page, with nTFF nowhere to be seen.

Considering that nTFF has a top-level domain name, and that I believe no one wants to give Hawk the satisfaction of beating us in recognition and registration after all the work done on the migration, perhaps it might be a good idea to look into methods of boosting our rating and placement in Google.

I leave this as a suggestion because I don't really have an idea of what could be done to achieve this, and I'd like input before we set up a poll or anything.

 

[Shirotsume]

nTFF is first when I search the fanfiction forum and 3rd behind fanficiton.net and the tvtropes page for TFF when I search fanficiton forum.

 

[Ray]

nTFF is first when I search the fanfiction forum and 3rd behind fanficiton.net and the tvtropes page for TFF when I search fanficiton forum.

Not for me, not by a long shot.

Does the Google algorithm take your browser's browsing history into account? That might explain the discrepancy.

 

[Shirotsume]

It does.

 

[half baked cat]

That is my search results.

This one is not on the first page.

 

[Altered Nova]

That's weird. When I search for "The Fanfiction Forum" on google, the TV Tropes page is the first result but neither the old forum or the new one are on the first page. The new forum is the first result on the second page though. I've yet to find the old forum on the the first 4 pages.

 

[Stick-Man Smith]

The current Google algorithm takes into account your search history and, if you are using Chrome, your browsing history and bookmarks. If you want an "unbiased" look, more like what someone hearing about the site for the first time would see, you'll need to log out of Google and try the search again.

 

[Shirotsume]

Definitely do some searches for Fanfiction Forum and then click thefanfictionforum.net

 

[Zephyrus]

Definitely do some searches for Fanfiction Forum and then click thefanfictionforum.net

Edit: Yeah, I was blind as fuck. Found it and clicked!

 

[Ray]

OK, logging out of Google, I *still* can't find nTFF within the first 4 pages, and oTFF is in the first page.

Screen:

 

[Shirotsume]

That's not oTFF, that's a copy someone made to try and jack the readers so their epenis could get harder.

oTFF is The Fanfiction Forum on z14, that's Fanfiction Forum on z10.

 

[Ray]

Well, that ameliorates the problem of oTFF leaking our members, but I still think we shouldn't be comfortable with nTFF not showing up in the first page or at least the second or third.

 

[Aarik]

oTFF isn't on google at all.

Hawk set it not to allow those kinds of site trawlers, so oTFF doesn't show up on google.

Made it a bitch to get back here after a crash back before I remembered how to use history and bookmarks.

 

[Shirotsume]

One thing that I believe would help our placement is allowing google to crawl all the non-restricted portions of the site. I can get into contact with Watashiwa or The Ero Sennin on how they could do that.

We should also ask Loki Nizashi his thoughts on linking to nTFF on his TFF ffnet community, given that it's called the TFF Community.

We also need Wata or Ero to add some meta tags so that google can display TFF properly.

I can work on trying to set all of the above up tonight or tommorow after I finish (!!) exams.

 

[Zephyrus]

One thing that I believe would help our placement is allowing google to crawl all the non-restricted portions of the site. I can get into contact with Watashiwa or The Ero Sennin on how they could do that.

We should also ask Loki Nizashi his thoughts on linking to nTFF on his TFF ffnet community, given that it's called the TFF Community.

We also need Wata or Ero to add some meta tags so that google can display TFF properly.

I can work on trying to set all of the above up tonight or tommorow after I finish (!!) exams.

I like this idea. Hopefully, the admins are receptive to it.

 

[half baked cat]

Good luck with those exams.

 

[ArchfiendRai]

oTFF isn't on google at all.

Hawk set it not to allow those kinds of site trawlers, so oTFF doesn't show up on google.

Made it a bitch to get back here after a crash back before I remembered how to use history and bookmarks.

Incorrect. You just have to type "The_fanfiction_forum" rather than "the fanfiction forum".

Thats how I always found the forum when I needed to find it on my phone.

 

[Ray]

Considering that Hawk is deleting our announcements off the old board, perhaps we should consider putting this on a higher priority. Just a heads up.

 

[Glimmervoid]

Considering that Hawk is deleting our announcements off the old board, perhaps we should consider putting this on a higher priority. Just a heads up.

We could have someone send newly registered users a PM? Keep an eye on oTFF's registrations and pop off a message when someone new appears.

Something like...

Hi. Welcome to TFF. A few months back most of the board's user moved to a new version of the form <link> along with a copy of all posts. Feel free to join us there.

 

[Knyght]

Changed my profile to advertise the site. I doubt it gets many views considering I only have one story there but it's the thought that counts. I'm tempted to PM the authors on my favourite stories list to invite them to the site.

 

[Watashiwa]

By all means, go ahead. TFF has always grown through inviting writers, and watching their followers follow. I got here because I saw both Hawk and AJT were here, and now I'm admin (Jesus Christ).

 

[violinmana]

I'll talk to Loki about this.

 

[Knyght]

And done. More troublesome than I thought it would be.

 

[chronodekar]

On the matter of allowing search engines to crawl the non-restricted sections of the site; shall we allow general non-member access to the "Talk" sections of the different sub-forums?

I'm against opening the 'Ideas' or 'Previews' areas, as we have members here who do NOT want their stories to be freely available (including myself).

Right now, if a non-member comes to our site all they'll see is a notice demanding registration. True, we've always had a very 'vibrant' lurker community, but I think teasing the 'general' sections would be a way to lure in people. Makes it easy for some of us to give direct links to certain threads to non-members.

-chronodekar

 

[Glimmervoid]

On the matter of allowing search engines to crawl the non-restricted sections of the site; shall we allow general non-member access to the "Talk" sections of the different sub-forums?

I'm against opening the 'Ideas' or 'Previews' areas, as we have members here who do NOT want their stories to be freely available (including myself).

Right now, if a non-member comes to our site all they'll see is a notice demanding registration. True, we've always had a very 'vibrant' lurker community, but I think teasing the 'general' sections would be a way to lure in people. Makes it easy for some of us to give direct links to certain threads to non-members.

-chronodekar

I agree. We shouldn't open up the previews (I personally have no problem, but others will, including those who posted content on oTFF before the fork). But talk seems okay, maybe the other non-fanfiction forums too.