Forum posts on google

[Bryan Bear]

I'm not sure if this is a dumb question or if it has been discussed or not. The birthday thread has me thinking about when I first stumbled across this forum. I had an interest in instrument making and was faking it in my basement. This was back in 2004 before I was used to just asking the computer any time I had a question. Once it hit me to go to the Internet to get ideas on certain tasks, this place kept popping up in my search results. Once I started coming right here and reading the library I was able to turn the corner and make real instruments.

The other day I wanted to look up the dimensions of the various Martin sizes. I knew there was a thread in the library here with a chart. Rather than navigation to the library to find it, I did a Google search for what I knew the thread was called. No results. Then it hit me, I haven't seen a hit for mimf on a guitar making search in a long time. Are the posts here blocked from Internet searches somehow? If so, are we isolating ourselves from a bunch of new members?

[David King]

We certainly our if that is the case. I thought the whole point of migrating to PHPBB3 was so that the threads could be indexed but there must be a no indexing command inserted somewhere in the root directory that google's bots are paying heed to.

[Charlie Schultz]

The policy on the library has always been that it is for members only (i.e. you must be registered and logged in to access it). Perhaps I have it restricted too much, I will look at it again.

Pretty much the rest of the forum should be open to search engines.

[Eric Knapp]

I found this forum through an internet search. I was not searching for a specific topic, just about guitar-making forums. There seemed to be many hits that came here.

-Eric

[Ryan Mazzocco]

Just another side of my paranoia and low self confidence as a builder, but I'd rather the MIMF not come up in searches.
I don't really mean that, I know how important it is and I would be nowhere without it. But I can't shake the fear of a potential client wanting to look me up and a search returns my posts in the MIMF, only to reveal that I have no idea what I'm doing and couldn't be less qualified to build their dream guitar.

[Jason Rodgers]

Are we talking about the archives from the old forum? That is inactive stuff that just sits out there in the ether, waiting for members to search it. How many current, though new regime, members even know about it?. Even in the old days, threads were closed and archived regularly. Yes, maybe reconsider the value of that decade of information and discussion in terms of the great stuff that is there, as well as something to draw people in and become members.

But as far as everything on the new forum goes (and correct me if I'm wrong), all of this stuff is forever active (including the very words I'm typing now) and accessible to anyone through google searches, right? A lot of searches I do on a regular basis pull up hits across multiple forums, and I've even found and been reminded of threads that I participated in.

... I can't shake the fear of a potential client wanting to look me up and a search returns my posts in the MIMF, only to reveal that I have no idea what I'm doing and couldn't be less qualified to build their dream guitar.

Heh, yeah, you and everyone else who has learned in this era of forum "apprenticeships." We're all screwed, now! (Oh, crap, that can be googled... crap, so can that... son of a... damn!)

[Eric Knapp]

Are we talking about the archives from the old forum? That is inactive stuff that just sits out there in the ether, waiting for members to search it. How many current, though new regime, members even know about it?.

I am pretty new here and I found those archived posts pretty quickly. They are a fantastic resource.

Even in the old days, threads were closed and archived regularly. Yes, maybe reconsider the value of that decade of information and discussion in terms of the great stuff that is there, as well as something to draw people in and become members.

I became a new member due to the level of quality and activity of the current posts. That's more important to me, I guess.

Heh, yeah, you and everyone else who has learned in this era of forum "apprenticeships." We're all screwed, now! (Oh, crap, that can be googled... crap, so can that... son of a... damn!)

Ha! That made me laugh right out loud. I also love the idea of forum apprenticeships. I tried to learn about building guitars when I was really young. I pestered a local guitar repair guy to the point where he had to ask me to stop. I stopped trying then as there was no other way to learn. The combination of YouTube and this forum is giving me the answers I need to make progress. That's wonderful, thanks.

-Eric

[Eric Knapp]

Just another side of my paranoia and low self confidence as a builder, but I'd rather the MIMF not come up in searches.
I don't really mean that, I know how important it is and I would be nowhere without it. But I can't shake the fear of a potential client wanting to look me up and a search returns my posts in the MIMF, only to reveal that I have no idea what I'm doing and couldn't be less qualified to build their dream guitar.

I know I'm not in your potential market but I'd be impressed that you participate on this forum. Asking questions and helping others is a good thing, not a sign of being less qualified. In my field, those with deep knowledge and long experience sometimes are the first to ask questions and say they don't know something. There's just too much to know.

-Eric

[Dave Weir]

I would think if you searched
Slow build log - not much defined on this one yet or
Slow build log - not much defined on this one yet mimf
you would get a hit sooner than you do. Actually, I never did see it.

[Bryan Bear]

Perhaps I was mistaken and active threads do show up. I just can't remember the last time I got a hit that took me to a discussion here.

[Clay Schaeffer]

"But I can't shake the fear of a potential client wanting to look me up and a search returns my posts in the MIMF, only to reveal that I have no idea what I'm doing and couldn't be less qualified to build their dream guitar."

That may be one reason many professionals don't participate in forums. You can't know it all. Another reason is arguing with people less knowledgeable than themselves. There are a few rare Pros who share their knowledge freely and are willing to put up with the rest of us.

[Simon Magennis]

Perhaps I was mistaken and active threads do show up. I just can't remember the last time I got a hit that took me to a discussion here.

Why in the world would google want to direct you here! Google's prime business is profiling you and selling you to people who might be able to sell you something. This is called "enhance the user experience".

Over the last few 5-8 years it has become pretty much impossible to find new and interesting stuff with google, bing and co. Initially duckduckgo was a lot better but after about two years the result from them became almost as targetted as the rest. Pity. Back when I first started using google (maybe 1997) it produced results that the other search engines of the day did not.

[Steve Sawyer]

Hate to resurrect an old thread, but I work in advertising, and while SEO (search engine optimization) is not my area of expertise, I work closely with colleagues for whom it is.

The problem isn't with Google or any other search engine. Their algorithms are designed to try to give the user the most relevant results, and do an effective job of weeding out sites or pages empty of meaningful content, the Web equivalent of spam.

The problem is marketers that understand what the search engune rules are, and use that knowledge to get their content to rank highly in search results. The huge majority of users never look at any results beyond the first page. Thus informational sites and pages (like the good stuff here) have to compete with marketing content that is crafted by experts at getting their stuff in that coveted first page of results.

That means that you're getting more highly-ranked hits from the people that want to sell you stuff than you used to because the web designers and organic search strategists work hard at making that happen.

I will frequently jump to the second page of results if I'm getting too many commercial hits when I'm seeking objective information. Do note however how often the relevant Wikipedia page comes up near the top of search results; some high-quality noncommercial content will just naturally rank highly. I just searched "coil tapping". Hits 1 & 2 were Seymour Duncan, #3 was Wikipedia.

[Beate Ritzert]

Perhaps I was mistaken and active threads do show up. I just can't remember the last time I got a hit that took me to a discussion here.

[Beate Ritzert]

Perhaps I was mistaken and active threads do show up. I just can't remember the last time I got a hit that took me to a discussion here.

Bt that's not an issue of the forum and its openness. It is an issue on the development of the search engines in recent years.

It appears to me that content with real information is suppressed in favor of commercial stuff (or better, bullshit.) The search engines cannot be used anymore (or nearly not) for research on specific questions. (What we actually need is a search engine free of advertizing. But that means that we will have to pay in some other way.)

[Steve Sawyer]

Bt that's not an issue of the forum and its openness. It is an issue on the development of the search engines in recent years.

As I mentioned above Beate, it's not the search engines - they're working as well as they ever have. It's the fact that the non-commercial sites such as this one get crowded out by the commercial sites that expend a lot of effort to get their results higher in the search rankings.

The end result may be lamentable. I too have wished at times for a filter that would remove all commercial listings. The problem with that is that there is no clean way of distinguishing commercial from non-commercial sites other than perhaps the top-level domain, but .com domains are not solely used by commercial sites - my domain is stephensawyer.com and I don't sell or promote any products!

Non-commercial content is further crowded out by paid search" where the commercial site pays a fee to the search engine to get their site into the top ranks of results. Some are forced to do this as the search engine algorithms would otherwise have them ranked very low (further evidence that the search engine algorithms are working as they should) because of the poor quality of their site content, the inability of the search engines to properly index their contents, or the lack of links to the site from other sites. Note that these are the ones that show up in the search results with the "Ad" or "Sponsored" designation in the search results.

The search engines do a lot of information gathering, placing us as users into "buckets" that help advertisers target ads and optimize their sites to come up in the searches based on certain search queries. Advertisers closely watch our behavior when we follow a link to their sites. If a lot of visitors land on their site then immediately leave (what is termed a "bounce"), they know that they're coming up in the wrong searches and need to refine how their sites are indexed by the search engines. While advertisers want to get users to visit their sites, they also have an interest in getting the the user good, relevant search results so when they visit the site, they stay and have a chance to get the advertiser's message. This is why a major part of modern marketing is "content marketing" - if all you try to do is sell crap to your site visitors, without providing them any useful information (beyond touting your crappy product), you will get a high bounce rate, your site will fall in the rankings and your site will be very ineffective.

For us, as users, the search engines are a tool and like any other tool we need to understand how they work and how best to use them. One of the best techniques for reducing the commercial hits (and improving the quality of the commercial hits we do get) is to do "long-tail" searches - include more keywords in our search queries to be more specific.

Try this - do a search on "PAF Pickup" and note the hits you get on the first page of results. Now repeat this but search on "PAF pickup polarity" then 'PAF Pickup "wire gauge"'. As you add technical qualifiers you still see commercial sites, but as with the Seymour Duncan and Stewmac sites that are obviously up on "content marketing", those hits will be of higher quality but you'll also see more hits for universities, blogs, forums etc.

[Peter Wilcox]

"WHO IS ONLINE" So I guess they're out there, checkin' us out.

[Eric Baack]

I would think if you searched
Slow build log - not much defined on this one yet or
Slow build log - not much defined on this one yet mimf
you would get a hit sooner than you do. Actually, I never did see it.

Probably not the most helpful thread title.....

[Randolph Rhett]

The truth is that Google results are getting less and less relevant. I suspect that if they had an economic interest in defeating SEO, they would probably do a better job of it. But, of course, so long as they have a near monopoly on Internet research it supports their advertising if the search function isn't 100% reliable. You can pay thousands a month in SEO, or thousands a month in direct Google ad buys. Without the one you would never justify the other.

[Steve Sawyer]

You can pay thousands a month in SEO, or thousands a month in direct Google ad buys. Without the one you would never justify the other.

Not sure what you're saying here. Paid search is much more expensive than SEO, also referred to as organic search. For a major consumer products company, you're talking millions in paid search for results that can be achieved for an investment of maybe tens of thousands in design and development costs. Most advertisers will fund some of both, but paid is a highly targeted supplement to organic, not the primary driver of traffic.

Also, the search algorithms can't thwart SEO efforts without also compromising search effectiveness.

The ad revenue comes from the paid advertising that you get along with the search results; Google and Bing and Yahoo make nothing off organic search results or click-throughs. Again, SEO analysts know how the search engines work, use that to make sure their pages rank highly in the algorithms' ranking (unique, geographically specific content highly relevant to the search query with many other sites linking to those pages), and all major advertisers do it. As I mentioned above, note how often Wikipedia pages come up highly ranked in the results. SEO analysts can ensure their pages meet the same criteria within the search algorithms. If you break the logic that works for the commercial sites, you break it for Wikipedia.