Sorry about bringing up an old topic, but its been awhile since I checked the list. But, I have been doing some webpages lately and researching the SE's (search engines). The problems with search engines is that each one looks at things differently, rather they use different methods to determine placement. Its a full time job keeping up with it. Some of these suggestions are general, mostly SE's are trial and error. But, since google is mentioned here, I'll try to concentrate a little on that one. When you do a search in google, they give more relevance to the search word being in domain name, then the sub-directories, then the name of the files www.linux.com would be listed first www.computer.com/linux/ second www.computer.com/os/linux.html third that is if all things were equal. Its generally been accepted that meta tags are skipped over. But, sometimes that isnt true either. The robots tag is ignored, but the robots.txt is not. Google places relevancy on topic. If your title is linux and you spend more time mentioning FreeBsd, you loose relevancy. Rumor has it that the SE's are starting to look at ip address's. If your domain is virtual, that is you share the ip with 200 other sites, you loose relevancy. As mentioned in other posts, more relevancy is given to sites that have the most links to it. Reviewing the source for mn-linux.org is easy to tell that the meta tags are not what they could be. SE's will match the title with the description tag and the body, including the alt tags. In the description or keywords, any word mentioned more than three times is considered spam and ignored. Looking at the source the decription tag is in there twice, thats a no no. Rule of thumb is to mention your keywords three times in the body. Keywords could look something like this: tclug, twin cities, minneapolis, minnesota, mn, linux user groups, (some engines will sort plural), meetings, redhat help, debian help, suse, slackware, mandrake, mail list, downloads, linux help, linux commands, rpms, iso, organization, users, lunix, how to Then use the keywords at least three times each in some very well written copy in the body. Like this: Welcome to TCLUG the Twin Cities Linux User Group. Based in the Twin Cities, Minneapolis MN, TCLUG provides a group of volunteers for linux help whether your using RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, slackware or other distributions. TCLUG holds meetings once a month and beer meetings twice a month, or whenever we get thirsty here in Minneapolis, MN or St. Paul Minnesota. Redhat, Mandrake, SuSE, slackware all have many versions and we try to give linux help with commands, installing and general how to information. We hold the InstallFest (meetings where we help you install linux) in and around the Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN. I think you getting the point, be creative with the copy so you can get the keywords mentioned three times. To help with keywords go here, type in linux for the search and you will get the most used search words and phrases for linux: http://inventory.goto.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ Do this will all the pages, use different decriptions and keywords on each page, but at the sametime use the keywords from the main page, or index page. To get a search for Minnesota to work, add Minnesota to the title. Also put the title in the description, that helps sometimes. You might also try this site for a in-depth meeting held for search engines: http://www.infonortics.com/searchengines/sh01/slides- 01/sh01pro.html For all I know, all the this info may change tomorrow, heck, it may have changed yesterday. When it comes to search engines, trial and error and lot of good luck is needed. Hope this helps, Bob On 25 Sep 2001, at 22:44, Bob Tanner wrote: > Any search engine gurus out there? > > I'm hoping to find out what we need to do to get www.mn-linux.org to > show up 100(!) listing in google when someone searches for 'minnesota > linux'. > > Top 10 would be even better. > > I ask this, because a UofM professor did not know the tclug existed > until he found Real Time and we directed him to the lug. > > He searched for 'minnesota mn linux' and found Real Time before the > lug web site, which is just plain wrong. :-) > > Any hints? > > Do a view source, on the pages of the lug web site. Any > recommendations on keywords and entries? > > -- > Bob Tanner <tanner at real-time.com> | Phone : (952)943-8700 > http://www.mn-linux.org | Fax : (952)943-8500 > Key fingerprint = 6C E9 51 4F D5 3E 4C 66 62 A9 10 E5 35 85 39 D9 > > _______________________________________________ > tclug-list mailing list > tclug-list at mn-linux.org > https://mailman.mn-linux.org/mailman/listinfo/tclug-list