Google Search
- rustyblade
- Shaving Paparazzo
- Posts: 10472
- Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:27 pm
- Location: Ontario
Google Search
Why does SMF not come up when you google search specific shaving terms that you know exist here? Entries from B&B always come up on google.
If SMF did show up, we would get more new users perhaps.
Anybody technical know why SMF content doesn't get cataloged by google?
It is a shame to have all this content here that does not seem to be available to the outside world.
If SMF did show up, we would get more new users perhaps.
Anybody technical know why SMF content doesn't get cataloged by google?
It is a shame to have all this content here that does not seem to be available to the outside world.
Richard
- With The Grain
- Gillette Aficionado
- Posts: 1832
- Joined: Mon Feb 20, 2006 1:33 pm
- rustyblade
- Shaving Paparazzo
- Posts: 10472
- Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:27 pm
- Location: Ontario
Not just that, but the content here will not show up, whereas B&B will.With The Grain wrote:if you search "how to shave" neither appear on the first page, it would be great if we could make SMF a sponsored result for that but probably costly
For example, something that I can remember is my sticky razors. I searched "The Wilkinson Sword Razor"
SMF doesn't show up. That text exists here also. There are many instances that anyone could be searching for shave stuff or a better way and all that valuable info here is not showing on google. Yet B&B does.
Richard
The Administrator can set up an account (if desired ~ there is a fee) with Google "Adwords". Choose 'key words', i.e. 'straight razor', wet-shaving, 'strop', etc. Those key words will trigger SMF to appear. There are many vaiables that would be up to the orner or owner/administrator. There may also be other ways to do so but this one works.
Sue
Sue
We don't seem to be hurting for participation. As more and more folk link to here, our google hits will go up. We don't sell anything, or accept advertising, so our hit rate doesn't really matter. My experience with paying google is that if people don't click through, your ad falls off the bottom anyway. I just don't think its worth paying for.
- rustyblade
- Shaving Paparazzo
- Posts: 10472
- Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:27 pm
- Location: Ontario
I'm not talking about the ads, that doesn't matter. Our content isn't showing up in the regular search listings. I have noticed this for a while now when I am searching for a specific shave soap, for example. B&B content will show up whereas old and newer SMF content doesn't (and we have a lot of valuable content here).
No, we are not hurting, but I am positive we would get more new users and that can't be a bad thing.
I'm just wondering why this is...?
No, we are not hurting, but I am positive we would get more new users and that can't be a bad thing.
I'm just wondering why this is...?
Richard
Inside some of the HTML documents you can put in META keywords that describe the web page and it's contents. You can aldo put in keywords that get logged by search "spiders" that seek all this stuff out. Then you can submit it to a search site, Google for example offers this for free, but offers no guarantees. You can also subsribe and pay for that too.
I've done this for my wife's decorating website. It worked pretty good. And I believe it has a bit of a snowball affect. The more times it is found, the more likely it is to be found as time goes on.
I just took a look at this site's META contents (right click on the page and "View Source"), and there is very little in the way of META content.
Dave
I've done this for my wife's decorating website. It worked pretty good. And I believe it has a bit of a snowball affect. The more times it is found, the more likely it is to be found as time goes on.
I just took a look at this site's META contents (right click on the page and "View Source"), and there is very little in the way of META content.
Dave
Personal growth has always been a passion of mine... I'm just too lazy to do anything about it.
That search doesn't even return any results if you add "site:shavemyface.com" on the end of the search term. It seems as if that page isn't even being indexed.rustyblade wrote:Not just that, but the content here will not show up, whereas B&B will.With The Grain wrote:if you search "how to shave" neither appear on the first page, it would be great if we could make SMF a sponsored result for that but probably costly
For example, something that I can remember is my sticky razors. I searched "The Wilkinson Sword Razor"
SMF doesn't show up. That text exists here also. There are many instances that anyone could be searching for shave stuff or a better way and all that valuable info here is not showing on google. Yet B&B does.
- Tim -
"You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."
"You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."
- rustyblade
- Shaving Paparazzo
- Posts: 10472
- Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:27 pm
- Location: Ontario
None of the text within the forum is ending up on google. It is bothering me and I don't know why. I added the site to to google manually a few days ago, but I think there is some way the database here is setup that google is not indexing it.timc wrote:That search doesn't even return any results if you add "site:shavemyface.com" on the end of the search term. It seems as if that page isn't even being indexed.rustyblade wrote:Not just that, but the content here will not show up, whereas B&B will.With The Grain wrote:if you search "how to shave" neither appear on the first page, it would be great if we could make SMF a sponsored result for that but probably costly
For example, something that I can remember is my sticky razors. I searched "The Wilkinson Sword Razor"
SMF doesn't show up. That text exists here also. There are many instances that anyone could be searching for shave stuff or a better way and all that valuable info here is not showing on google. Yet B&B does.
It is stopping many people from finding this site. They are finding B&B instead (which has had a large influx of new users). This could be good/bad depending on how you feel about new users, but it can't be a bad thing for the future.
Richard
I am by no means a web technology expert, but I do teach classes on searching, and it may be that SMF is falling into the memory hole that's called "The Invisible Web".
If the back-end software for the forum generates static pages that are modified each time there's a new post, then bots like Googlebot are able to index each page in the forum.
However, if pages are generated dynamically, on the fly each time (for instance, by concatenating individual replies archived in a database) then Google has no way to find the information, because the page literally doesn't exist until it's created by a click on a link.
The software appears to be called phpBB. Since php is a database system, I'm guessing that dynamic pages are the problem. Badger and Blade runs on vBulletin.
Of course, it could be that there's some other issue (bots may be disallowed by default in the software, the admins may have chosen not to have the forums indexed, etc.) but this would be the first thing I'd look at.
Here's a thread on the phpBB forums that might give the admins some insight.
If the back-end software for the forum generates static pages that are modified each time there's a new post, then bots like Googlebot are able to index each page in the forum.
However, if pages are generated dynamically, on the fly each time (for instance, by concatenating individual replies archived in a database) then Google has no way to find the information, because the page literally doesn't exist until it's created by a click on a link.
The software appears to be called phpBB. Since php is a database system, I'm guessing that dynamic pages are the problem. Badger and Blade runs on vBulletin.
Of course, it could be that there's some other issue (bots may be disallowed by default in the software, the admins may have chosen not to have the forums indexed, etc.) but this would be the first thing I'd look at.
Here's a thread on the phpBB forums that might give the admins some insight.
Actually, the first thing to check would be the robots.txt file http://www.shavemyface.com/robots.txtyoyology wrote: Of course, it could be that there's some other issue (bots may be disallowed by default in the software, the admins may have chosen not to have the forums indexed, etc.) but this would be the first thing I'd look at.
And here it is:
So, the robots.txt file tells search engines to not index anything in "/forum", which is why forum posts aren't showing up. At least, that seems to be the best explanation that I have.# robots.txt for http://www.shavemyface.com
User-agent: *
Disallow: /forum
Disallow: /gallery
Disallow: /personal
- Tim -
"You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."
"You throw the ball, you catch the ball, you hit the ball. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains."
- rustyblade
- Shaving Paparazzo
- Posts: 10472
- Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:27 pm
- Location: Ontario
Tim, that explains it. Nice bit of detective work, thanks.
Now, I can see the reason for this if it is indeed deliberate. I said earlier that B&B is getting more new users, but this is not necessarily always desirable. It has been known for a while that more 'experts' reside on SMF. All I'm going to say is B&B has a much different "flavour" in that regard and the serious shavegeek information is retained over here. This is not a knock on B&B, just a conclusion I came to a while ago.
If you need serious info on razors, brushes, soaps/creams, and technique it mostly happens here.
Now, I can see the reason for this if it is indeed deliberate. I said earlier that B&B is getting more new users, but this is not necessarily always desirable. It has been known for a while that more 'experts' reside on SMF. All I'm going to say is B&B has a much different "flavour" in that regard and the serious shavegeek information is retained over here. This is not a knock on B&B, just a conclusion I came to a while ago.
If you need serious info on razors, brushes, soaps/creams, and technique it mostly happens here.
Richard
HAHAHAH BUSTED! Yes, it's true. I put this file in place to prevent Google from indexing the forum content. Why? Because Google was sucking up all my bandwidth by downloading every damn page on our server.
Personally, it doesn't really bother me if we're ranked kinda low on Google. Errrr...should I be concerned? Hooray for word of mouth! LOL
Vince
Personally, it doesn't really bother me if we're ranked kinda low on Google. Errrr...should I be concerned? Hooray for word of mouth! LOL
Vince
timc wrote:Actually, the first thing to check would be the robots.txt file http://www.shavemyface.com/robots.txtyoyology wrote: Of course, it could be that there's some other issue (bots may be disallowed by default in the software, the admins may have chosen not to have the forums indexed, etc.) but this would be the first thing I'd look at.
And here it is:
So, the robots.txt file tells search engines to not index anything in "/forum", which is why forum posts aren't showing up. At least, that seems to be the best explanation that I have.# robots.txt for http://www.shavemyface.com
User-agent: *
Disallow: /forum
Disallow: /gallery
Disallow: /personal
:::Vince:::
Yea, I'm sure that by limiting our exposure we have also kept our growth down. I would theorize that this lends itself to a forum that is easier to manage and therefore higher in quality. Yes, that's right. We are the best!rustyblade wrote:Tim, that explains it. Nice bit of detective work, thanks.
Now, I can see the reason for this if it is indeed deliberate. I said earlier that B&B is getting more new users, but this is not necessarily always desirable. It has been known for a while that more 'experts' reside on SMF. All I'm going to say is B&B has a much different "flavour" in that regard and the serious shavegeek information is retained over here. This is not a knock on B&B, just a conclusion I came to a while ago.
If you need serious info on razors, brushes, soaps/creams, and technique it mostly happens here.
:::Vince:::
- fallingwickets
- Clive the Thumb
- Posts: 8813
- Joined: Mon Nov 06, 2006 11:59 am
I was intent on finding out how to take care of my new razor and went page after page through the google results to my query (I guess I could take a lesson or two on searching google....lol) and somehow by sheer luck I guess came to SMF. All this to say that if you are serious avout shaving, you'll get to niverna eventually!rustyblade wrote:Tim, that explains it. Nice bit of detective work, thanks.
Now, I can see the reason for this if it is indeed deliberate. I said earlier that B&B is getting more new users, but this is not necessarily always desirable. It has been known for a while that more 'experts' reside on SMF. All I'm going to say is B&B has a much different "flavour" in that regard and the serious shavegeek information is retained over here. This is not a knock on B&B, just a conclusion I came to a while ago.
If you need serious info on razors, brushes, soaps/creams, and technique it mostly happens here.
- rustyblade
- Shaving Paparazzo
- Posts: 10472
- Joined: Sun Oct 23, 2005 5:27 pm
- Location: Ontario