SMF On Google - Ouch!

[sensovision]

Juvie, just the opposite. One of the biggest factors is your url.

not necessarely, domain should be in thefirst place easy to remeber for people who using it. simplemachnies will not influent on ranking much since it doesn't contain hypens and it's not likely that people would look for "simplemachnies" as one word(of course if they didn't hear about this software before) anyway simplemachnies isn't contain any clue abotu bulletin board software... so it's not important in our case.
The most important thing would be search engine friendly URL's something like Uknown made would be just perfect as they doesn't contain semicolons which is major problem.
I already say this on SE community and say it here, if each board will contain direct link instead of this "http://www.simplemachines.org/referer.php?forum=Simple+Machines+Community+Forums%7Chttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.simplemachines.org%2Fcommunity%7CSMF+1.0+Alpha" it would make great boost in ranking since many communities with high PR will link to us.

[Juvenall Wilson]

Juvie, just the opposite. One of the biggest factors is your url.

I need to disagree with that. The URL gives very little weight with respect to the search tearm. This is according to Larry Page, a co-founder and executive of Google. The reasioning is because "url spoofing", or using a misleading url, was a common way to improve the ranking of a site with common search tearms.

This method of indexing was stoped by most of the major search engines in the last few years. The problem was that sites would submit say, www.homeworkhelp.com and get top rankings because of the domain name when they were really trying to sell cell phones. This is also why Google ignores the keywords meta-tags and will black-list pages that seem to have too many instances of the same word (another trick to get higher rankings).

[charpress]

A good URL name will still bring you in ahead of another site with the same ranking. Example: if your site is named IdahoLawyer and another lawyer in Idaho has the same ranking with a site called joeblowlawyer.com, a search on "idaho lawyers" will bring up the IdahoLawyer site first every time.

That being said, the difference is small enough that I changed my domain from something similar to my example to a shorter, easier to remember name because the difference was not critical.

[Overseer]

yupp... i'd have preferred a single word name thats kinda easy to say  (like yabb.. :/ lol)

[Axplosion]

yupp... i'd have preferred a single word name thats kinda easy to say  (like yabb.. :/ lol)

Haha, yes, try to say 'SMF' without saying it as a abbreviation, pfffff, I had to practice that a few times

[Chris Cromer]

Haha, yes, try to say 'SMF' without saying it as a abbreviation, pfffff, I had to practice that a few times

Sounds like I am saying Smurf.

[Axplosion]

Haha, yes, try to say 'SMF' without saying it as a abbreviation, pfffff, I had to practice that a few times

Sounds like I am saying Smurf.

You should try to put a few 'h''s in it, like saying it while breathing heavily out: shhhmfff

Sidenote: We're getting a bit offtopic...

[Chris Cromer]

Sidenote: We're getting a bit offtopic...

Does it really matter?

It's not like this is a majorly important topic IMHO.

[chris]

SMurF is funny... but I think "SM-Forum" is more fun

[Axplosion]

Sidenote: We're getting a bit offtopic...

Does it really matter?

It's not like this is a majorly important topic IMHO.

lol! The moderators are starting to dislike us already, Freakazoid (I remember some things on YaBB.nl, like extra titles 'Offtopic master'... )

[Axplosion]

SMurF is funny... but I think "SM-Forum" is more fun

Well, there's no way this forum will be found when you search for 'SM-Forum' in a search engine...

[Chris Cromer]

lol! The moderators are starting to dislike us already, Freakazoid (I remember some things on YaBB.nl, like extra titles 'Offtopic master'... )

Starting to?

I have earned a title like that on a forum called the subspace channel(no url because it's phpbb).

I think my favorite off-topic post was when I was quoteing doctor seuss(spelling?) in the middle of a space quest discussion.

[Axplosion]

Starting to?

I have earned a title like that on a forum called the subspace channel(no url because it's phpbb).

I think my favorite off-topic post was when I was quoteing doctor seuss(spelling?) in the middle of a space quest discussion.

lol! A good habit to start with on fora, quoting wise men in the middle of my posts! (btw. doctor who?)

[Chris Cromer]

The guy who wrote the cat in the hat, and green eggs and ham books.

My post consisted of stuff like this:

I will not eat it in a box, I will not eat it with a fox. I do not like green eggs and ham sam I am.

[Ben_S]

SMurF is funny... but I think "SM-Forum" is more fun

Well, there's no way this forum will be found when you search for 'SM-Forum' in a search engine...

I dont think ill try that one in work

[Axplosion]

The guy who wrote the cat in the hat, and green eggs and ham books.

Never heard off...I don't think those books were never translated in Dutch... ^^
My post consisted of stuff like this:

I will not eat it in a box, I will not eat it with a fox. I do not like green eggs and ham sam I am.

Well, I have to admit, it sounds really like a wise man who wrote this! Haha!

[Chris Cromer]

Well these books are childrens books.

Maybe you have heard of the Grinch who stole christmas? He wrote that as well.

[Axplosion]

SMurF is funny... but I think "SM-Forum" is more fun

Well, there's no way this forum will be found when you search for 'SM-Forum' in a search engine...

I dont think ill try that one in work

Oh no, don't do that, or Terry Tate will get you! (brilliant commercial!)

[Axplosion]

Well these books are childrens books.

Maybe you have heard of the Grinch who stole christmas? He wrote that as well.

Only heard off "The Grinch", that movie (never seen though), I think I missed something in my youth

[Juvenall Wilson]

Ok..ON topic..lmao

Here's an example of google not really caring about the domain name when doing rankings.

Below is a search for the term "Forbidden Treasures" at Google. The query is for the name of a store one of my friends owns. His site is http://www.forbiddentreasures.net

http://www.google.com/search?q=Forbidden+Treasures&sourceid=opera&num=0&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

As you can see, it dosn't show up at all on the first page. In fact, other sites that don't even have the query in the url are given a higher ranking. In order to find his site (which he has submitted a few times and has been up for over a year now) you need to go to the second page -

http://www.google.com/search?q=Forbidden+Treasures&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&safe=off&start=10&sa=N