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Wanderingson
01-27-2008, 00:41
In a recent post by Miss Janet in the "Walk in the Woods" thread, she had mentioned about people doing a Goole search about hiking the AT.

This got my brain to thinking.

Typically when most people do a seach on any search engine (google, Yahoo, etc) they start out with a simple search and expand from there. Many people also limit their searches to the first page or two of websites unless they are obsessed with seaking specific information. Many search engines list websites in priority based on the nember of people who click on a link after a key word return.

I did a very simple search on both Yahoo and google. I typed in "Appalacian Trail". I was surprised to see that Whiteblaze was listed on page two on Google and buried way back in page 11 with this simple search.

I would be interested in doing a little test to see if we could bump Whiteblaze up to the first page on both of these just by doing this simple search and clicking on the link. Let's see if we could bump it up a little bit.

I have read numerous threads about the number of people who jump out on the trail and are completely uninformaed about being prepared. The most recent post that comes to mind is the hikers who were found with no appearant map or compass. Some folks were quick to point this out. Another thread quickly appeared asking for some guidance on how to learn map and compass skills.

I would venture to say that all of us would much rather use this forum to educate the newcomer and give them resources to have a safe and happy hike.

If Whiteblaze was on the front page of these search engines, I would also venture to say that folks would be likely to join the community and seek out immediate feedback.

We all know that Whiteblaze is a really awesome forum for folks to become educated about hiking and the AT.

What do you say? How about giving it a try.

Wilson
01-27-2008, 00:51
Type appalachian trail forum, and see what comes up first.

Wanderingson
01-27-2008, 00:58
I had already done that--great information if you were searching specifically for a forum.

I'm a search engine junkie when I am on a quest for information, but you will be amazed how many folks start with simple word searches and don't go any further.

warraghiyagey
01-27-2008, 01:26
Not sure what or where I searched a couple years ago when researching the AT but Whiteblaze was one of the first to catch my eye.

jzakhar
01-27-2008, 01:33
That is interesting, this place sees a lot of traffic. I am surprised it wasn't page one. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be a pretty difficult thing especially with whiteblaze using dynamic url's still.

Submitting a sitemap and changing the url's to a search engine friendly format would probably glue this place to page 1

attroll
01-27-2008, 02:03
Just doing a search with Google for "Appalachian Trail" and clicking on WhiteBlaze in the search results is not the only thing that helps web sites with there ratings. There is a lot more to it then just clicking on there name when the search results that pop up. It does help but it is not the only thing in the calculation.

If you look at the web sites in the search results for "Appalachian Trail" you will see the following listed that are higher then WhiteBlaze:
Appalachian Trail Conservancy
Appalachian Trail Home Page
Appalachian National Scenic Trail (U.S. National Park Service)
Appalachian Trail - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Appalachian Trailplace
and four others

These web sites have been around for a lot longer then WhiteBlaze has. One of the other things that helps the search rating is having other web sites linked to you. Since these other web sites have been around for so long there is a strong possibility that there are a lot more web sites linked to them then to WhiteBlaze.

Wanderingson
01-27-2008, 02:14
Attroll,

Great points. Many being ahead of Whiteblaze in the pecking order have earned their place through historical existance. Many of these offer some great information to get folks pointed in the right direction.

Thanks for the additional information.

Kirby
01-27-2008, 11:10
Is Whiteblaze listed on the Appalachian Trail website? I don't recall it ever being there.

Kirby

spittinpigeon
01-27-2008, 11:21
I read somewhere about money being part of what comes up first, sad but true. Personally, I think this place is pretty busy right now. If it got much more traffic, it would be hard to keep up.

HikerRanky
01-27-2008, 12:06
I read somewhere about money being part of what comes up first, sad but true. Personally, I think this place is pretty busy right now. If it got much more traffic, it would be hard to keep up.

There is actually 2 different components to being found in search engines.... What attroll and others are referring to is organic SEO ( Search Engine Optimization)... This uses different items, such as age of the domain, the # of inbound links to the site in question, the amount of content, and toher things... Google reportedly uses about 137 different items to measure the relevance of a site...

The PAID aspect is called SEM, for Search Engine Marketing. This is where a site, such as WB, would buy on certain keywords... Depending upon the keyword and the # of searches on it determines the price that the site will pay for the keyword... This is a bid process... It's almost like daytrading in the stock market... The site only pays in the case that a person clicks on their paid link....

Many sites are beginning to use both techniques in order to get them up to the top page, or in what is called the one-box ( where paid SEM shows up before the organic results)...

Hope this helps explain that......

Randy