After a discussion in another thread, I decided to check and see which pages of the forum have gotten the most visits from people clicking on them from search engine results in the past week. Other than the main page, which has received by far the most clicks, the top five category or forum pages were: Constitution & Bill of Rights Senior Directory Project Senior Employment Crops & Gardens Hobbies & Crafts These reflect the pages that have received the most clicks this week, either to that specific page or one of the subpages beneath it. These pages come up in searches largely because they are the most often linked to from directories, blogs, and other third-party web sites that link to this forum, so they get an extra boost in the search engine results, but it may also be because they included topics that are often searched on, or perhaps because there isn't a lot of competition for some of them. The ten forum pages or threads that were most often clicked on from forum results are: What Are We Eating For 2016? Thank You, Thank You Very Much: Let's Talk Elvis Who Has More Faith? Believers Or Atheists? Baker's Dozen What's For Breakfast? Ants In The Attic Home Remedies What Is Your Impression Of The Bible? The Pope Versus The Donald Shopping & Sales Some of these threads were just created this week, and one was just created today. One of the reasons for this is that Google gives a boost to new pages. When a new page is indexed by Google, the search engine frequently displays it prominently for a few days and if it gets a lot of clicks, it might remain prominent, but often not. Another thing that Google does is it tracks the length of time that someone remains on a page after clicking on it and uses that in its algorithm. In other words, if someone click on a search engine result and immediately realizes that it's not what they were looking for and goes elsewhere, Google tracks that and considers that this result wasn't relevant for that person. On the other hand, if they click on the page and then remain on the site for a long time, clicking into other pages of the site, Google tracks that too, and assumes that this must have been a relevant result for that searcher. Some of the threads that were popular among search engine users today were game threads, but they were very long ones, some more than fifty pages, and they tended to have a focus. One of them - the tenth one - was a forum thread, meaning that the entire collection of threads beneath that forum were popular. Either way, this is simply a snapshot. I don't plan on doing this often but if I were to look again next week, the most popular category pages would probably remain much the same, but the most popular pages would undoubtedly differ.
seniors forum Bing: 1 Google: 4 Yahoo: 6 Yandex: 12 seniors only Bing: 1 Google: 1 Yahoo: 1 Yandex: 1 seniors discussion forum Bing: 1 Google: 2 Yahoo: 2 Yandex: 7 forum for seniors Bing: 1 Google: 2 Yahoo: 9 Yandex: 12 senior discussions Bing: 19 Google: 0 Yahoo: 19 Yandex: 0 over fifty forum Bing: 0 Google: 0 Yahoo: 0 Yandex: 0 forum for older people Bing: 0 Google: 0 Yahoo: 0 Yandex: 0 forum for people fifty or older Bing: 7 Google: 12 Yahoo: 17 Yandex: 0 forum for people fifty years old or older Bing: 2 Google: 0 Yahoo: 8 Yandex: 0 I didn't look beyond the second page of results.
Thanks. Slowly, we're moving up. I haven't put a lot of money into marketing, other than some directory listings and an occasional Facebook ad campaign, largely because I don't intend to earn any money from the forum.
If you have no plans of earning any income from SOC then I think we're doing okay... maybe a few more people would be nice but I certainly wouldn't like us to become a huge forum ....They're too impersonal. Even though Ive had my ups and downs on here I still feel very comfortable posting my true feelings on here...wether they agree or disagree with the poster.
@Chrissy Cross, I think we could handle being larger but only if we got there gradually. A large influx of new people would change the dynamics, and it might not be as much fun as it is now. In any forum, people come and go and we have to have at least as many new people coming as there are going, but a large number of people either coming or going at the same time could be a problem. I will keep trying to bring us up in the search engines though, because I want people who are looking for what we have to be able to find us.
I think they're right about the Russians, though. They must be the enemy because Yandex doesn't rate us highly.
@Ken Anderson , I don't understand those charts, Could you please explain it to a poor ol' country girl?
@Shirley Martin, that's the search engine results from four common search engines; well, actually three common ones plus Yandex, a Russian one. Not counting advertisements, most of them display ten results per page, and most people don't look beyond page one, so I want to be somewhere between one and ten.
@Ken Anderson , if somebody searches Bing for "forum for people fifty years old or older", we would be number 2 on the list?
seniors forum Bing: 1 Google: 3 Yahoo: 4 Yandex: 4 seniors only Bing: 1 Google: 1 Yahoo: 1 Yandex: 2 seniors discussion forum Bing: 1 Google: 2 Yahoo: 2 Yandex: 10 forum for seniors Bing: 1 Google: 2 Yahoo: 8 Yandex: 15 senior discussions Bing: 18 Google: 0 Yahoo: 18 Yandex: 7 over fifty forum Bing: 0 Google: 0 Yahoo: 0 Yandex: 0 forum for older people Bing: 0 Google: 0 Yahoo: 0 Yandex: 0 forum for people fifty or older Bing: 10 Google: 13 Yahoo: 6 Yandex: 0 forum for people fifty years old or older Bing: 2 Google: 18 Yahoo: 10 Yandex: 0 I didn't look beyond the second page of results.
seniors forum Bing: 1 Google: 4 Yahoo: 3 Yandex: 4 seniors only Bing: 1 Google: 1 Yahoo: 1 Yandex: 1 seniors discussion forum Bing: 1 Google: 2 Yahoo: 1 Yandex: 4 forum for seniors Bing: 1 Google: 2 Yahoo: 2 Yandex: 12 senior discussions Bing: 16 Google: 0 Yahoo: 0 Yandex: 5 over fifty forum Bing: 0 Google: 0 Yahoo: 0 Yandex: 0 forum for older people Bing: 0 Google: 0 Yahoo: 0 Yandex: 0 forum for people fifty or older Bing: 9 Google: 16 Yahoo: 9 Yandex: 0 forum for people fifty years old or older Bing: 2 Google: 12 Yahoo: 11 Yandex: 0 fifty plus forum Bing: 20 Google: 0 Yahoo: 20 Yandex: 0
seniors forum Bing: 3 Google: 3 Yahoo: 4 Yandex: 5 seniors only Bing: 1 Google: 3 Yahoo: 1 Yandex: 1 seniors discussion forum Bing: 2 Google: 2 Yahoo: 1 Yandex: 1 forum for seniors Bing: 2 Google: 2 Yahoo: 4 Yandex: 7 senior discussions Bing: 6 Google: 0 Yahoo: 6 Yandex: 5 over fifty forum Bing: 0 Google: 0 Yahoo: 0 Yandex: 0 forum for older people Bing: 0 Google: 0 Yahoo: 0 Yandex: 0 forum for people fifty or older Bing: 2 Google: 17 Yahoo: Our Facebook page is #4 Yandex: 2 forum for people fifty years old or older Bing: 3, Our Facebook page is #2 Google: 0 Yahoo: Our Facebook page is #3 Yandex: 3 fifty plus forum Bing: 3 Google: 0 Yahoo: 4 Yandex: 0