Search Engines

[Walking Eagle]

I agree, google usaully finds what I'm looking for the best.

[crazy rob]

This might seem like a weird question/poll to be asking but I have reasoning behind it. I'll tell ya later after a few people take the poll.

[mattadams]

I prefer google myself, it typically has the best results.

[mattadams]

Darn server problems. Please be patient. It seems the server changed the time and its screwing EVERYTHING up.

[crazy rob]

Damn, server. My post didn't take last night.

Oh well. Basically the reason why I had us take this poll is to see who uses which search engine the most. This will give good reasoning to what I'm about to say. In regards to Matt's post about "Trying to think of creative ways to get RMFTC word out," I might have an easy solution to it and a good reason to why we haven't had that many members. I was doing some research yesturday about which search engine produces our site with what keywords. I found something I didn't of before. Since 50% or so of us use google as our major seaarch engine, I typed in "Colorado Ford Truck Club" as keywords and see what I got. Well after searching 16+ pages I found no RMFTC site. With the same keywords on yahoo, the second listing on the first page was RMFTC. I then tried "Rocky Mountain Ford Truck Club" as keywords on google and yahoo. Google produced RMFTC on the second listing of the second page while Yahoo produced it as the first listing on the first page. I didn't do this little research to rag on Google but to point out that if 50%+ of us use Google as our major search engine, how is RMFTC going to be found by those who people searching for a truck club through google? I went last night on google and tried to see what needs to be done to make RMFTC one of the first sites you see on Google but couldn't find anything that would help. If you guys can think of anything this could help with Matt's question on how to get the word out.

[UrbanCowboy]

Well for starters, the main page could use more words in the meta tags. The phrase "Rocky Mountain Ford Truck Club" is not listed as a group of words nor is "Colorado Ford Truck Club." Rocky Mountain Ford Truck Club is in the title of the page so that helps a bit as you noticed in your research.

The current Keywords are as follows....
Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, Denver, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Boise, falls, Salt Lake City, rocky mountain, ford, truck, trucks, f150, f-150, ranger, lifted, lightning, harley, pics, supercrew, photos, davidson, f150, svt, articles, expedition, ranch, king, wheels, 4x4, saxon, install, ranger, explorer, excursion, navigator, f-series, fseries, superduty, flareside, xlt, eddie bauer, f250, f-250, f350, f-350

Good article..... Which I dont have time to read
http://www.theukwebdesigncompany.com/articles/good-listing-google.php

[mattadams]

I thought google looked at that the tags and since all those words are in there, it might do it, but I will update it with some new tags, like "Colorado Ford Truck Club", "Rocky Mountain Ford Truck Club", etc.
Also, I've recently purchased (but am still trying ot set up) www.rockymountainfordtruckclub.com, just in case people access it that way instead, and might find certain names in the domain name itself, which helps. It would still be the same exact site, both domains pointing to the same server.

[MMPC]

I like to Google...

[Tray]

With that, here's a bunch more meta tags to add.

truck club, truck forum, ford club, ford forum, ford pics, ford pictures, truck pics, truck pictures, installations, custom truck, custom ford, 4x4 club, suv, bronco, edge, king ranch, harley davidson, F 150, F 250, F 350, F series, super duty, powerstroke, triton, Diesel, truck show, rocky mountain ford truck club, colorado ford club, colorado ford truck, ford truck club, rocky mountain ford club, pickup, ford pickup, ford truck, ford trucks

[mattadams]

good suggestions, I will get them added. Keep em coming if you can think of more.

[mattadams]

ok I got those meta tages added to the main page so hopefully that will help. Another thought (thanks Jen) is that if you have a website that is currently listed with Google, even if its on like the 50th page, add a link to the Rocky Mountain Ford Truck Club on there. One of the ways the Google search engine works is it goes to other sites and from there, finds the links to other sites, and finds the links to sites from there, and so forth, and the more sites "link" to RMFTC, the higher priority its likely to receive. I changed the meta tags but I wouldn't expect it to update to google right away, often times changes don't get recognized for a week or more.

[Tray]

I've had a link on my site for a while now. Does google care if it's just the link, or do I need to ID it as RMFTC in text as well?

[mattadams]

As far as I know from what I read on google's site, its just a link.

[crazy rob]

First thing matt you need to do, is get rid of "Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Arizona, Denver, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Boise, falls, Salt Lake City" as the first meta tags. You need "rocky mountain ford truck club" those kind of keywords first. IF you have states and cities that this site deals with but are not priority in what the site is about, they shouldn't be first on the meta tags keyword list.

[mattadams]

I changed the tags around to the following:
rocky mountain ford truck club, colorado ford club, colorado ford truck, Colorado, Denver, ford truck club, rocky mountain ford club, rocky mountain, ford, truck, pickup, ford pickup, ford truck, ford trucks, f150, f-150, ranger, f250, f-250, f350, f-350, ranger, explorer, excursion, navigator, f-series, fseries, superduty, F 150, F 250, F 350, F series, super duty, powerstroke, Montana, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Wyoming, Arizona, Idaho, Phoenix, Albuquerque, Las Vegas, Boise, falls, Salt Lake City, lifted, lightning, harley, pics, supercrew, photos, davidson, f150, svt, articles, expedition, ranch, king, wheels, 4x4, saxon, install, flareside, xlt, eddie bauer, truck club, truck forum, ford club, ford forum, ford pics, ford pictures, truck pics, truck pictures, installations, custom truck, custom ford, 4x4 club, suv, bronco, edge, king ranch, harley davidson, triton, Diesel, truck show

[Walking Eagle]

I'll have to see if I can find the article I was reading, but it mentioned about making the description to big. I don't remember what the drawbacks were.

[Tray]

So who's my other fellow dogpile user?

Looks like most of you 'Google It'

[Glass]

Thatd be me...Dogpiling is more fun than googling..

--John

[crazy rob]

Ok, so far doing a "Rocky Mountain Ford Turck Club" search on google comes up with 9th list, which is better then on the second page. As for "Colorado Ford Truck Club" or anything like that, I give up after the seventeenth page.

I notcied that google seems to look at the first paragraph or so of the first page of the site. Not saying your intro is bad, Matt, but maybe we could add or change it a bit to help boost listing on search engines.

[Tray]

If Turck club brings it up as 9th, I wonder what Truck club would do? :lol:

[MMPC]

ROFL! Way to go, Rob... :roll::D

[mattadams]

Rob, tell you what, you re-write the into paragraph, I'll get it on the main page! :)
I like dogpile too, but I can't list RMFTC there, it costs money, about $50 to list it there.

[crazy rob]

Thanks tray...Mental note...check spelling prior to submitting reply.

[crazy rob]

Matt what about a contest for the person who could write the best paragraph(s) for the first page, gets a sticker? :D