Textkit forums and Google

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Jeff Tirey
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Textkit forums and Google

Post by Jeff Tirey »

For the curious...

I have been trying for a while now to get this forum more digestible by the Google bot. The session ids that are tacked onto the urls when a visitor is not logged in are killing us. I did apply a new hack to the forum this week that should help.

Let us hope!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... gle+Search

we're up to 2 pages so far...
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Keesa
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Post by Keesa »

I'm sorry, Jeff, but I don't speak computer-ese. I have no idea what you're talking about.

Is this something that I need to know about? And if so, could someone translate please?

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Post by Jeff Tirey »

no, you don't have to worry about this at all.

That was a long way of saying that everything posted in this forum will someday be searchable in Google. So be careful what you say :)
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Post by Keesa »

Oh, okay. Thank goodness!

No, I don't have to worry about that. I'm usually pretty careful about what I say.

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benissimus
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Post by benissimus »

What can you do to get this site more searchable on Google? Obviously you get a lot of traffic, judging by the total downloads alone, yet you have to be really specific if you want Textkit to even show up on the first page of results :(
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

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Post by mariek »


Who do we have to sacrifice to get the GoogleBot Gods to smile upon us?

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Jeff Tirey
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Post by Jeff Tirey »

The reason Google doesn't index our threads is only technical. If you log out and then click on the links you'll see that a session ID is tacked onto the end of the url. This session is how the forum script keeps track of who you are as you move about the forum.

The problem is the google can't indexed pages with session ids, so when it stops by it sees only links that it can't follow. I added a small hack that 'should' fix this.

Benissimus - what search terms are you talking about?
Textkit does very well for many (very specific) search terms. The more general search terms like greek grammar, latin grammar, learn latin .. we're still working on. We compete for position with many other education sites that have been around for years - so it takes real time to make improvements. But slowly as more and more sites link to us we move up in the rankings for many important keyword terms.

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Jeff Tirey
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Post by Jeff Tirey »

ok, it's starting to happen...

http://www.google.com/search?q=Powered+ ... l&filter=0

this should help more learners find us.
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Post by Jeff Tirey »

I realize I'm mostly talking to myself with this thread, and that's fine, this is a forum about Greek and Latin and not Google.

But I wanted to point out that Google has added about 700 pages of our forum to its index.

What's this mean for you? Nothing really, except that your postings and involvement on this forum help others learners find us.

For example go to Google and search for:

Wheelock's answers

or

Pharr's Homeric greek

I'll monitor all the traffic that enters the site through the forum as an indication of how well new learners find Textkit through the indexing of the forum threads.


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Post by Emma_85 »

No, I don't have to worry about that. I'm usually pretty careful about what I say.
Ahh... well, I'm not really careful :roll:

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Post by benissimus »

Actually I find all this very interesting Jeff... especially when it has something to do with a post of mine ;)
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

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Post by Keesa »

You're not talking to yourself at all. I've kept up with every thread you've posted in this forum. I just don't usually reply because I have very little to say on the subject, except that I'm happy for you. :D

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Post by mariek »

jeff wrote:I realize I'm mostly talking to myself with this thread
No you're not. I'm "listening"... :D

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Post by Jeff Tirey »

mariek wrote:
jeff wrote:I realize I'm mostly talking to myself with this thread
No you're not. I'm "listening"... :D
That's cool! I wasn't too sure how interested everyone was with the interworkings of search engines.

I think Google has indexed about 10% of all forum posts. This is really great because the forum is like a growing archive of collected questions and answers. All these posts will help answer future questions and help future visitors find us.

So keep asking and answering those Greek and Latin questions!

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Post by annis »

jeff wrote:[This is really great because the forum is like a growing archive of collected questions and answers. All these posts will help answer future questions and help future visitors find us.
Especially those interested in discussions of libertarian political thought. :lol:

--
wm,
thinking he should check all his posts even more carefully in the future

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Post by Lex »

annis wrote:
jeff wrote:[This is really great because the forum is like a growing archive of collected questions and answers. All these posts will help answer future questions and help future visitors find us.
Especially those interested in discussions of libertarian political thought. :lol:
This is the Open board, darn it, the Open board! *grumble grumble*
I, Lex Llama, super genius, will one day rule this planet! And then you'll rue the day you messed with me, you damned dirty apes!

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Post by benissimus »

You never know, there may be a day when the open board is a flourishing community of people who have no interest at all in ancient languages :shock:
flebile nescio quid queritur lyra, flebile lingua murmurat exanimis, respondent flebile ripae

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Post by Kasper »

and just come here to fight with Lex...
“Cum ego verbo utar,” Humpty Dumpty dixit voce contempta, “indicat illud quod optem – nec plus nec minus.”
“Est tamen rogatio” dixit Alice, “an efficere verba tot res indicare possis.”
“Rogatio est, “Humpty Dumpty responsit, “quae fiat magister – id cunctum est.”

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Post by Kalailan »

and then a t-v program will be made out of it. it will be the first to be based on a forum, and will be called "Lex against the world: the last language lover and his fight for survival"

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Post by Lex »

Kalailan wrote:and then a t-v program will be made out of it. it will be the first to be based on a forum, and will be called "Lex against the world: the last language lover and his fight for survival"
Har de har har....

Hey, I didn't even start the last one. Mingshey posted about Perseus bootlegs, I made what I thought was nothing more than a mildly amusing response, and Jeff started his self-described rant in response to that.

And getting back to languages, I certainly don't think I'm going to be the last language lover. I'm starting to hate Greek sometimes. My problem is that I have the lousiest memory. Too many drugs in college, I guess. The noun declensions were bad enough; they say there are only three declensions, but it seems you have to memorize dozens of patterns to make them actually work. (Although I've been reading Pharr recently, and I must admit that his explanations of the declensions do make the declension variations seem less random.) And the verbs... argh, I don't even want to think about the all the verb patterns right now. I don't know if I will ever get past the grunt work memorization stage to the point where I will actually enjoy reading the stuff.
I, Lex Llama, super genius, will one day rule this planet! And then you'll rue the day you messed with me, you damned dirty apes!

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Post by Emma_85 »

You never know, there may be a day when the open board is a flourishing community of people who have no interest at all in ancient languages
One forum I go to a lot is actually like that. It's a forum that was originally created for fans a certain PC game. They are now up to version 4 of the game, but most people there only ever had like version 1 (which was, what 1985?). There are about 10 people who are actually interested in the game, and so each time I log on it says something like: game discussions: 2 new posts, general discussions: 236 posts.
It's funny really, most people have probably forgotten it's actually about a PC game, it's just political discussions mostly.

Don't think that will happen to Textkit, though. This site isn't dependent on the popularity or a new version of a PC game :P .

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Post by Kalailan »

Lex, i hope what i said didn't offend you. i just meant it as a funny comment, nothing behind it.

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Post by Lex »

Kalailan wrote:Lex, i hope what i said didn't offend you. i just meant it as a funny comment, nothing behind it.
Don't sweat it; you didn't offend me. I'm used to forums where participants threaten to beat each other up in the real world, so everything here is light-hearted banter to me.
I, Lex Llama, super genius, will one day rule this planet! And then you'll rue the day you messed with me, you damned dirty apes!

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