Search engines finding forum posts
 

I am experiencing a problem with my posts here on the forum, and I wonder if there is a solution.

As I am posting with my name, I have realized that if someone googles me my site is very low on the google result pages, while my posts here show at first place. ( Actuallly my website has recently disappeared from google searches, I guess I must do something to the index page subtitles)

Recently one of my clients, while looking for my website, has seen her daughter's portrait here while I was trying to sort it out with you all here, much before it was finished.
Again another client of mine has told me she has been reading all the comments of her son's portrait!
With the RSPP exhibition opening, if someone googles me I would like him to end up on my website rather then having a glimps behind the scenes.
I am actually thinking that a possible solution could be posting under my married name.
Any input?
Ilaria

I believe that the WIP section is our own, members only, to look into. I think a little about that when I post.
Allan

Forum posts are pretty much open to the public. Because of the high amount of traffic this site gets it's not surprising that these posts would show up fairly high in a Google search. To avoid that you could use your married name for Forum posts, if you like. Good idea actually!

Nowadays some judges are considering theses posts virtual help. I think they are not going to cause any trouble, but it would be better if only members could access this area.

I see that your website mentions your name only once. That murders your google hits. You need to have it in the title of every page (the title appears on the title bar, not the page itself), and you need to have it on every page. Don't use a jpg image of your name. That doesn't count.

As a webmaster I can tell you that your website is not google friendly.

UPDATE: I googled a couple of the more active users here, and they don't have the same problem. Type their name and you get their site as the first on the results list. Learn about SEO (search engine optimization). Google barely knows you exist if you don't tell them.

Yes, I just looked at the forum index and there are 74 users online: 4 registered and 70 guests.

I think it is wonderful that other artists can view the threads and learn from what they see, but at the same time it would be nice if more areas, for example critiques, were for members only.

Using a different name here is a good idea. Is that allowed on this forum? :bewildere

Well, it would be funny, Beth has called me once Romeo, maybe I'd use this ID ;)

Lacy, let me ask Cynthia what her policy is on that.

Jeff, your experience on how to make a website more searchable would be VERY helpful to Forum members. Can you tell us more?

You're kidding!

She calls me Romeo, too!

Actually, that's not true. But it's a good story.

Ah you're both my Romeo's...

Ilaria this is why I don't post for critiques here, I don't think any professional should be doing that for the very reason you have stated.

I know I have inquired and perhaps others too - to get a password protected area where the SOG Artist and/or Juried Members could post an issue like the moderators do on this forum.

I think we would all need to contribute more to Cynthia if she does do this, I am not sure it's a big deal but it certainly would be a big help. I think for her to change everyones names would be a bigger nightmare!


Oops... I forgot, Jeff when you did the Google did you notice if the sites that came up were designed and hosted by SOG? That could make a big difference too.

Though the set-up was prior to my having 512KB removed from my memory when I turned 50 (which wasn't a recent event), my recollection is that the Works in Progress (WIP) topic was specifically created to block access to any non-members, for precisely this reason.

Without doubt, Google picks up the threads on the Forum that are open to anyone, members or not.

But do any of you have any experience in seeing Google pick up posts from the Works in Progress (WIP) topic? If so, then that would be useful information for Cynthia, I assume.

If not, then there's one solution -- namely, when seeking input on an ongoing commission, use the WIP topic. Unless there's a glitch in the software, access to that topic should be blocked unless a user has signed onto the Forum with a user name and password.

Theoretically.

Google spiders are very frequent "guests" on this site (there almost every time I look), as they are on every other site throughout the world. That's why you get 3,992,083 hits in .002 seconds for even a complicated natural language query on an esoteric topic.

It's actually a word to the wise. Artists who have, say, unflattering personal opinions about other artists and who publish those opinions on Internet forums (it has even happened here! -- though, thankfully, not recently) effectively publish them to the world, including the authoring artist's clients.

Steven thanks, I didn't know that about the WIP. :thumbsup:

Yes, it's a little tricky to discover. If you sign on before you start browsing, the WIP topic seems open, as with any other topic. If you browse without signing on with your user name and password, you won't have access to the WIP topic.

I am neanderthal in my computer savvy (and I intend for it always to be so), but I've assumed that that "block" kept outsiders as well from that topic. I run into "you don't have permission to access this page or you are not signed in" blocks all the time in Google results, and I have always assumed that this WIP topic worked the same way.

I'm not sure it was clear that this was the intended use and value of that topic.

There is a sectional password feature - supposedly - but when I set the password and then go to log in, it does not work - just doesn't let me in. I think this is what I ran up against before when I tried to install this featured and just haven't had a chance to sort out the problem with the tech people at vBulletin. I'll look into it after the Dallas show.

There's a lot to be said about search engine optimization, and I'm no expert, but I can tell you that it's very important to make ample use of keywords. In other words, think of what search phrases someone might use if they were looking for an artist such as yourself. Make ample use of those words, without letting it get too awkward. For instance, on the description of an image, calling it

"Greg 18"x24""

is less likely to get hits than

"Portrait of Greg. Oil on Canvas by Jeff Fuchs 18"x24".

The second one contains words you'd use in google when looking for artists. Do this for each image.

Google also looks at the title bar, and assumes that it is a good description of the subject matter on the page. Many Titles, such as Ilaria's, just say "Home". That tells Google nothing about what the page is about, and loses it within a billion other pages named "home". To change the title, look at the page's html code for a tag that says <title>Home</title>. Remove the "Home" text and replace it with "ILARIA ROSSELLI DEL TURCO: Portrait Artist" (notice that the page you're reading says "Portrait Artist Forum" in the title bar, as it does throughout the website).

Use your name often. Look at major sites like Amazon.com. Try to find a page on their site that doesn't say "Amazon.com" on it. They know what they're doing.

Look at your signature here on SOG and other forums. I hate to pick on Ilaria, but it's her thread. Instead of a signature that says www .ilardt. com, try using ILARIA ROSSELLI DEL TURCO. This helps Google associate the link to the context of your name. This has been used for propaganda purposes by poltical activists. Before the last election, one side had their followers post a link on their websites across the country that said "colossal failure" (or something like that). The link led to their opponent's website. Then, when anybody googled the words colossal failure, they got his website, even though his site does not contain those words.

There's a lot more to it, like getting other sites to link to you. Be sure to ask other artists to link to you. Ask your galleries, your friends, anybody with a website. Try to get them to use your name as the link text, not your domain name. The more links you have, the more important Google thinks you are (actually, the quality of the links comes into play. If CNN links to you, it carries more weight than joe blow's site.)

Hope this helps.

Jeff

Thanks, Jeff. This is very helpful. Any more information on this topic that you can think of would be greatly appreciated too, I'm sure!

I agree that it could be awkward to have a client happen upon entries on this forum when looking doing a google search. I know and accept that if someone visits the forum they will see my comments. However I would prefer if they weren't "google available". Last year I had some complaints about a difficult client, and I would be embarrassed if she happened upon them by searching my name.

A good way to prevent google and other search engines from selecting a page is to put the following meta tag in the header.

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

That basically tells the search engines to ignore the page.

Mary

Thanks to all for the contribution!

Jeff, I'll sit down and try to follow your suggestions, thank you very much for taking the time to explain.

I have recently changed my website so that I could work on it from my apple laptop, and I have to figure up how to do it.

Ilaria

I know about this Mary and I put it in earlier installations of vBulletin and did not work. I read about it over at the Help Forum for vBulletin they discussed over there how it did not work.

Thankfully, Cynthia handles all of my cyberspace interface (catchy phrase actually)

It doesn't hurt to remind ourselves that everything on the web is public. You wouldn't believe conversations I have located on other Foums or even non-art Forums.

I would never post a client's image in any public place without permission, and I don't think it's a good practice for amyone . It's no different ffrom publishing an image in a magazine, except that it can be deleted - but ereasing the url doesnt erase if from a Google cite.

Certainly a child's image should never be posted with first and last names, or any other identifying words.

To add to Chris' comments, remember that there are websites that archive pages. Archive.org is one of them. If you want to see a site's contents from three years ago, they just might have it. Google also caches pages, but for a limited period. Deleting your entire website would not make it inaccesible to someone who is curious and resourceful. (I notice that SOG seems to have a way to override this. They have cached pages on archive.org, but the site blocks them. Cynthia has a good webmaster).

Here's what Yahoo looked like ten years ago... http://web.archive.org/web/199610172...ww2.yahoo.com/

Sometimes I regret things I've posted on the web, and I especially regret that I can't delete it.

Cynthia IS the webmaster:)

Ilaria, I see that you eliminated your url from your signature. That's not what I meant. You need to link your name to your site. Look at my post again. I didn't just type your name, I linked it to your website. This is how Google associates your name with your site.

Here's the code...

<a href=http://www.ilardt.com/> Ilaria Rosselli Del Turco</a>

BTW: Be sure to verify your links. I just noticed that one of the senior members here on SOG has a bad link on her SOG signature. Don't just put your link on a page, confirm that it really works.

Thank you Jeff!
I have one more question for you: I changed the name of my homepage as you suggested, but the browser would not accept file names that contain spaces.
I am very grateful for your help!

Ilaria

Shoot - I've been meaning to tell her that for a while. Sharon K - it's you. Check your link.

Your site seems to forward to a subdirectory in your server. You need to edit the title tag of the page that it lands on (/ilaria_rosselli_del_turco/home.html)

Warning: If you don't know how to edit html, see if you have a friend or family member who knows how to do it. You can make a mess of things pretty easily. Absolutely don't do anything until you create a full backup of all your files. Don't work from the backup files. Keep them separate in case you need to restore them.

On your main page, the title tag has not been changed. It still is <title>Home</title>. Just replace the word Home with the title of your choice. If you edit your files on your computer, be sure to save and upload them, using the same file names and addresses as the original. If you can edit them online, be sure the files are writable first. When you finish editing, make them un-writable again, to protect them from hackers.

Looking at your page sources, it seems you used a web authoring program of some kind. It's likely that you can change the settings in the software so that it autoamatically enters your chosen title in all of the pages.

Another inexpensive idea -- buy a domain name that people might be inclined to use while looking for you. I checked, and ilariarossellidelturco.com is available. ilariarossellidelturco.org has been taken. If you're the owner, you should use it. I'd suggest spending the $8.50 per year to get the name that people naturally assume you'd have. (JeffFuchs.com is already taken... drat!).

You can buy a domain name cheap, forward it to your established domain name, without moving your site. You'll have two domain names, but you'll be taking advantage of people's natural tendency to add "dot com" to your name to find your site.

Jeff, thanks again, I might go for that domain.
Who on earth could have bought the .org I do not know.
When I bought my domain I thought the shortter the better.
Such a long surname, a first name that nobody understands outside Italy (Alana? Alariah?)...it's one of the reasons for which I married someone called Lais.

About the html instead it's going to be hard, since I am the internet pioneer among my friends!
I really appreciate your help
Ilaria

When you say SOG, I assume you mean SOG Forum? They are not one and the same. SOG refers to the main site only.

This topic is being temporarily closed until the two topics can be appropriately split. The topic about search engine optimization is a second subject and needs to be under Computer Software.

I'm also changing the subject of this topic to "Search engines finding forum posts" since the current topic doesn't really tell the reader what the thread is about.

Though many do not honor it, technically .org is for non-profits and .net is for internet service providers. I would personally never register a .org or .net domain name.