why is 311s.org so hard to find?

[AidanDawn2000]

311s is far and away the most awesome forum (and probably website) on the internet so why doesn't it come up on a google
search of "Datsun Roadster forum" ??

[ted heaton]

My My My, He is RIGHT!
STEVE, do we need to pay someone off?

Ted.

[Linda]

A sitemap helps Google Search.
Send a check to my address, Ted

Linda

[S Allen]

Problem is when I set the site up many years ago I set it up with key words Datsun Sports, spl311 and srl311. We did not start out as a forum initially-just a website with some tech info, FAQ's and the registry. I am sure I can update the key words with Datsun Roadster Forum. It will take a bit for the web crawlers to get updated. Guessing most folks do not even know what a 311 is. There is a band called 311.... Good point for sure and I will see what I can do about it. Thanks for pointing this out.

Steve

[S Allen]

Okay, I updated the site key words and put "Datsun Roadster Forum" at the very front. Will let it get crawled for a week or so and see if that helped.

S

[jrusso07]

Okay, I updated the site key words and put "Datsun Roadster Forum" at the very front. Will let it get crawled for a week or so and see if that helped.

S

If we all search on these terms and go to the site from the results the search engines will learn. The more we hit the site from the search engine results the faster they will learn and the higher in the ranking the page will show...so I am told.

[mraitch]

Just tried it - came up 3rd on page two of google through this link only
https://www.wiizl.com/311s.org

[RBMann]

I did a Google search for 'Datsun Roadster Forum' and after looking through the first 10 pages of results I did not see 311s.org.

[S Allen]

I guess meta tags and key words are out dated. I found a site that creates a directory and uploads it to some of the most popular search engines. I am still waiting for approval but I made it "Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org" . If it does get approved it will take a couple of weeks to start propogating across the internet. Just doing a search will not help much. So, we will have to wait and see.

S

[jrusso07]

Udaman Steve

[Linda]

That's what all those people do who call and say" I can get you on page 1 of Google" if you sign up with them. Known as SEO, Search Engine Optimization.
Linda

[mlwebb]

It's more fundamental than that - 311s.org should come up in search results for all kinds of searches 'datsun roadster rear wheel studs', for example - risingson and ratsun come up on the first page of results, no 311s.org. Trying 'datsun roadster rear wheel studs site:311s.org/' in google produces nada. Yet searching 'rear wheel studs' on the site search produces 290 posts and should rank well for a relatively obscure search - So the first thing I would check is your server logs to see if the google robots are visiting. If not, check and make sure you don't have a robots.txt that prohibits them. Nor do results show up in the first couple pages of Bing. So there is a problem near the root of the server, in that it is not getting spidered, if not a robots.txt, then possibly in the php forum configuration, although most similar forums don't have this issue.
Ditch the keywords and meta-tags, and I would be cautious with services offering 'links' - Google knows a good link from a bad link, and some of those outfits have a bad rep with them. Better would be for every member here that has a Datsun roadster related website, blog, etc to put a link to the forum.
Michael

[garth]

Mmmmm! Searching 311s on Google.ca with Chrome yields "311s.org Discussion Form" first hit on page one. Maybe its a function of Google settings.

Never experienced any problems related to 311s.org from my smartphone or tablet either.

Strange! ??

[GeoffM]

I've noticed this as well. It's like the forums are not crawled well. Couple this with the fact that with the re-design there really isn't a 'home page' so to speak and I can see why. If you google "67.5 roadster", 311s.org should fill the first page....but it doesn't show up.

Steve, not sure how deep you are on this stuff but here is a great starting point. If you look at SEO Start Guide, it could give you some tips. I believe that under Webmaster Tools, they even provide the lines of code to add to the site headers.
https://developers.google.com/webmaster ... dex/?hl=en

[S Allen]

Geoff,

Thanks for the link. I did know about the robots.txt and had one in place which was blocking quite a bit. I renamed it this morning so I have no robot blocking now. I did not know about the Robots meta tag and X-Robot-Tag HTTP Header. I think this all really started when I went away from a normal htm/html pages to the strictly forum based which is for the most part PHP. I remember when I could do a search for Datsun Roadster and 311s.org might not be the first one but it would be on the first page. I did sign up for a free web directory service which is suppose to make it easier to find a site. I have not been approved just yet but it cannot hurt if approved. Otherwise I might have to go back to having some htm/html pages so the crawlers can find us again. I want to wait and see what removing the robots.txt did as well as what the directory services might do before I start making any more changes. I am not into signing up for any paid SEO(search engine optimization) services as I do not think they really give you much bang for the buck. There are quite a few sites out there that already have links to 311s.org s well. It is a waiting game for now.

Steve