What happened?

[sublime3sixteen]

This site seems pretty dead lately. Whats going on.

[Ray]

I am open to suggestions?

[Jiggaman]

seems like the other two TSX sites are drawing everyone in.

[freeride149]

nah, even club tsx . com and acura-***.com are pretty dead.. i guess tsx drivers have busy lives.

[accsuperstar]

how is acura-***.com dead? its much more active than here and *******.com

[Ray]

its because of google they for some reoson dont have our site pop up on top when people search "acura tsx" but we come out when people search "tsx forum" anyone one have any ideas why we are not on top of their list.

[Ray]

moved your thread to suggestions.

[larchmont]

Well, my own two cents:

I did a little research.

If you google "Acura TSX," this site basically doesn't show up AT ALL.

"**************" comes up on the 1st page.
"ClubTSX" comes up on about the 7th page.
I checked up to about the 10th page, and this site still wasn't coming up. Maybe it's on the 11th page, dunno..... doesn't matter.
Basically it doesn't show up.

But wait a minute..... If you google "Acura TSX Forums," this site is THE VERY FIRST THING that comes up.
The others come up on the first page also, further down.

A couple of things:

(1) If you want to get people, you must do something to make this site show up on the "Acura TSX" google. Otherwise, how do you expect people to find it? It's great that the site comes up on that other google, but most people aren't going to do that.

(2) In view of the fact that those other two sites are larger and more established (even ClubTSX, despite its severe problems), if this site is to grow significantly it seems to me that it has to offer something better than those other sites. With regard to **************, that's going to be tough. They don't just have a lot of great members, they have a few key members who are in positions to always get the latest info and rumors onto the site, and (whether on purpose or not) they handle things in a way that the entire membership is constantly anticipating what juicy next info might hit the fan. One thing this site has going for it, IMO -- and, people being what they are, I suspect one or two people at that other place are going to think I'm saying this just to take a poke at them, but it's not so -- is a more reasonable attitude from the administration. That will help a lot; for whatever it's worth, it's why I'm here right now. But I doubt it will be enough. I think that eventually the site will need to have some semi-inside source of information in the active membership.

I don't think it would be hard to provide more than the "other other" site provides. Except, I think what they have going for them, and maybe the main thing that keeps them going, is that they do show up on the most likely google.

So, first things first: People need to be able to find the site.

[Ray]

As far as search engines go.. when the term "Acura TSX" used to be searched 5-6 months ago we used to be on page 2 and the other 2 sites were always on top. We didnt grow for that one reoson.

Now things are changing.. As you can see they are not on top anymore WHY? I have no idea but give it another 2-3 months they will lose their spots for that keyword completly.

As for traffic we get much more traffic then both of them.

See for your self http://www.alexa.com/data/details/?url=www.tsxclub.com type in their url to see their traffic ranking.

They are both dropping very quickly.

We may not have people who post all the time but we do have visitors who read about the tsx on this site.

Search terms that give us thousands of hits "TSX Forum" "Acura TSX forum" and the list goes on.. both yahoo and google we are on top.

I will be doing some more things to get us better traffic ranking in the next couple of weeks.

Remember one thing though they both have other sites that they own and learned many things on.. clubrsx and acura-tl.com

anyways I am not looking to upset anyone I am not here to beat anyone at anything.. I just own a tsx and dont need a big site to talk to other owners sometimes.

[larchmont]

Great, great reply. And thanks for not taking offense.

Very interesting stuff.
About the fact that this site doesn't show up on that easiest Google search ("Acura TSX")....well, even though I know truly nothing about computers, I decided to do a little more "research," and if usual logic serves me right, immediately I saw why this site doesn't show up -- and it's extremely simple.

It's like this: Those other two sites have the phrase "Acura TSX" right up at the beginning of the text on their home page. Where does the phrase appear on this site's home page?

It doesn't! Astonishingly, the phrase "Acura TSX" (per se) doesn't appear anywhere in what we might call the "permanent content" of that page's text, which I'm guessing is what gets searched first by Google. I did find the phrase twice on that page, but it's not in what I think would be considered "permanent content of the text," and neither mention is prominent.

Looks like it might be easy to remedy this. My guess would be that all you'd need would be one line of text on the top portion of the home page, maybe like a subtitle right below the site name. There's plenty of room. Even if the "banner" is left there (which we've been discussing elsewhere), there's lots of vertical empty space on the top portion of the page. I would guess that anything like, "Internet forum on the Acura TSX," or maybe better yet, simply "Acura TSX forums," because that would put the key phrase even closer to the beginning of the page, would do it.

But of course, I realize that I really don't know. I'm going only on usual logic, which may or may not apply to computers or Google.
But I'd bet it does.


Putting a few things together......I would think the best thing of all would be to eliminate the banner, put in some phrase like the above, and eliminate most of the empty "vertical space." That would address a couple of the issues that have been discussed.


About those traffic rankings -- very interesting. I didn't know that anything like that existed, and it's great that this site ranks higher than the others -- a little higher than ************** and considerably ahead of ClubTSX. But pardon me for being suspicious about the accuracy of the rankings. Firstly, considering just the relative positions of those other two sites, if you look at any one of a number of apparent indicators -- number of active members, number of posts, number of members and guests on the site at any given time -- you can see that a-tsx has WAY more traffic than ClubTSX, yet this very great disparity is not reflected in the differential rankings. (A-tsx is ahead, but not by that much.) And the same can be said, at least at the moment and in the last few months, of a-tsx.com and this site. So I wonder about some artifact.


Again, great reply on your part. And I hope that this reply in turn may contribute to helping the site move along.

[Ray]

What do you think of the top phrase "Welcome to TSXClub.com Acura TSX Discussion Forum!" Might help? Is this what you wanted?

As far as alexa ranking goes.. I have been following our ranking a very long time we used to be at 350k when the other 2 were at about 100k each.

As everyone left one site (clubtsx) and went to the other site (a-tsx)

clubtsx just died and their rating kept going down.

We were also going down at a point then when the SEMA pictures were posted by hip our traffic just jumped because many forums were linking to us.

Alexa has a graph chart that you can look at of every site may help you understand it better.

[larchmont]

First of all, gotta say I'm tickled pink just that you're asking about this, and that you're not taking offense at my posts -- not even to mention that you're actually considering taking action on the suggestions.

I think your phrase does the job fine. The main thing, of course, is just to accomplish the goal of having the site show up on the simple google of "Acura TSX," and it seems like that would do it.

But, while we're at it, what about this: Since it seems reasonable to guess that there's a close correlation between how soon the phrase shows up on the home page and how high the site shows up on the google, why not go all the way and put the phrase RIGHT ON TOP? I know this is different from what I said before, where I suggested that it be sort of a "subtitle," but I think this would work even better. Maybe something like:


Acura TSX discussion forum (or forums)

TSXClub.com


(Of course the lines would be centered left-to-right, or somehow lined up better with each other than what shows here;
I didn't know how to do that on this page.)


:)


BTW I think the lower-case letters in "discussion forum" are important, because otherwise maybe it would look more like you're trying to make people think the site is an official Acura thing.

[Ray]

Originally posted by larchmont
why not go all the way and put the phrase RIGHT ON TOP? Hmm.. not sure what you mean by right on top? On top of our logo? or the browser itself?

[johnej]

I would think if you do what larchmont suggest asthetically you could put both on the same line in the browser header on at the far left and the other at the right...Sort of like the newspaper, or just center both title and subtitle one underneath the other

[larchmont]

Originally posted by tsxclub
Hmm.. not sure what you mean by right on top? On top of our logo? or the browser itself?
Well, I don't know. I mean, I know what I meant, but -- pardon my ignorance --
I just don't know what "the browser" means in this context!! :newbie:

Anyway, all I meant was that this phrase should be the very first bit of whatever is considered the "text" of the page, since I'm guessing that this is the main thing that is searched by Google. So I guess I mean, above your logo -- and in fact, right above your logo, because I think that way the key phrase that we're talking about would clearly be seen as just a describer of what follows (i.e. the site name), rather than an attempt to fool people into thinking this is an official Acura site. (I think you do have to worry about that and cover yourself.)

But, having said that, as per what I said earlier this whole thing really would benefit from some higher computer expertise or (better yet, but maybe impossible) Google expertise.
The basic thing is: What you want to do is, put that phrase ("Acura TSX") as close to the beginning of whatever it is that Google primarily does its search on, preferably RIGHT AT THE BEGINNING of that portion, whatever that might be. I'm guessing that it's what I've called "the permanent text of the home page." (That's just a phrase I made up, since I don't know what it's really called; I imagine there is some jargon term for it.) If you think that Google's primary search begins with "the browser" -- whatever that is :confused: -- then by all means put it at the beginning of that.


Gee, it sure is hard to convey what seems like a simple thing. What I'm saying is, forget all the stuff on the margins of the page, and forget the ads etc., and what you're left with is what we might call "the body" of the page, or "the permanent text." I'm saying this is what Google probably does its primary search on. And if you put this key phrase -- "Acura TSX" (make sure to include the "space," BTW) -- right at the very beginning, that would give you the best possible advantage.


I guess two paraphrases is enough, so I'll leave it at that.


P.S. No need to tell me what "the browser" means. I'll probably forget anyway. :D

[larchmont]

I see you're working on it! Looks like there have been a couple of changes -- looking good IMO.

Don't know if Google-searches take account of such changes immediately or if there's some lag. I would have thought immediately, until a while ago when I just happened to notice that Google "found" one of my posts from another site, even though I had deleted it! :confused: I guessed it meant there is some delay in Google picking up on changes in websites.

In the current instance, it doesn't seem this site has benefited yet from the change. I did another quick search, and it looks like this site still doesn't appear. Maybe it's just that there is indeed a delay, or maybe that phrase does need to be placed higher/earlier on the page.

Couldn't help noticing another thing, and it's strange: Although yesterday "that other site" appeared on the first Google page, now it's down to page 6. This would seem to mean that Google-searches just are somewhat erratic. It doesn't seem possible that the site would have sunk from page 1 to page 6 on any logical basis in just one day.


Dunno about y'all, but I'm finding this whole thing awfully interesting.

[johnej]

I thought google would have picked it up sooner. I would like to offer one suggestion maybe, and that would be to change the font to that of the TSX Club forums style (just to be consistant). Otherwise it looks good

[larchmont]

Well, now that we're getting into the "science" of Google-searches, I couldn't resist taking the research a little further. And I did learn a little:

First of all, I think I figured out what you mean by browser :rolleyes: -- I guess you mean, the site's label appearing on a search?

And part of what I seem to have found out is that the listing priority of search results seems not to depend on the label ("browser"?) very much, if at all, since on a Google-search of "Acura TSX," one of the sites appearing on the FIRST page doesn't have that phrase in the label. (In fact it doesn't have Acura or TSX.) However, all of the other results on the first few pages DO have the exact phrase in their labels. It's not until page 7 that a lot of the results don't have the phrase in the label.

I looked at a number of the sites that show up on this search -- several of the ones appearing on the first page, and then one from each of the next few pages -- and I couldn't see any clear logic to the order of things. All of the sites DO have the key phrase somewhere near the top of what I've called "the permanent text" or "body of the page," but many of the sites appearing further down on the search seemed to show the phrase just as prominently as the "higher" sites.

I would guess there's some "trick" to it -- and/or some "influence," which seems possible since the official Honda/Acura sites get top billing. Another thing suggesting that there are "tricks" to it..... a lot of you have probably heard examples of really strange search results. Maybe the most famous one is how if you search on Google for "miserable failure," the first thing you get is...... well, just try it. :D (To make it even more fun, go directly to "I'm feeling lucky" with that search.) Obviously there's some trickery involved in getting sites like that to the top of any given search. Scary, isn't it? But it sure would help to know how to do stuff like that.

[Ray]

Originally posted by larchmont
Well, now that we're getting into the "science" of Google-searches, I couldn't resist taking the research a little further. And I did learn a little:

First of all, I think I figured out what you mean by browser :rolleyes: -- I guess you mean, the site's label appearing on a search?

And part of what I seem to have found out is that the listing priority of search results seems not to depend on the label ("browser"?) very much, if at all, since on a Google-search of "Acura TSX," one of the sites appearing on the FIRST page doesn't have that phrase in the label. (In fact it doesn't have Acura or TSX.) However, all of the other results on the first few pages DO have the exact phrase in their labels. It's not until page 7 that a lot of the results don't have the phrase in the label.

I looked at a number of the sites that show up on this search -- several of the ones appearing on the first page, and then one from each of the next few pages -- and I couldn't see any clear logic to the order of things. All of the sites DO have the key phrase somewhere near the top of what I've called "the permanent text" or "body of the page," but many of the sites appearing further down on the search seemed to show the phrase just as prominently as the "higher" sites.

I would guess there's some "trick" to it -- and/or some "influence," which seems possible since the official Honda/Acura sites get top billing. Another thing suggesting that there are "tricks" to it..... a lot of you have probably heard examples of really strange search results. Maybe the most famous one is how if you search on Google for "miserable failure," the first thing you get is...... well, just try it. :D (To make it even more fun, go directly to "I'm feeling lucky" with that search.) Obviously there's some trickery involved in getting sites like that to the top of any given search. Scary, isn't it? But it sure would help to know how to do stuff like that.

Amazing!
As far as them dropping to 6th page What did I tell you?

I think this site has the keys to understanding Search engines http://jimworld.com/ enjoy!

[Ray]

Originally posted by johnej
I thought google would have picked it up sooner. I would like to offer one suggestion maybe, and that would be to change the font to that of the TSX Club forums style (just to be consistant). Otherwise it looks good Is that what you meant? Look up :D

[Ray]

As far as posts going in to google.. There is a trick to it http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?t=56617&highlight=archive

I cant seem to install it.. It converts all the php pages in to html pages both of the other sites have it.

I get an error everytime I try.. I will have rackspace take a look at it for me by the end of this week.

That does not mean our pages dont go in to google they will also be in there just takes more time.

[johnej]

That is perfect. Now it looks like it belongs :)

[larchmont]

Originally posted by tsxclub
.....As far as them dropping to 6th page What did I tell you?.....
This is really interesting. Here's an update:

-- Now they're down to page 7. :confused:
-- Club TSX is down to page 8.
-- This site still doesn't appear. (I checked down to page 15.)

And, maybe oddest of all, acura-cl.com, which I'm pretty sure is run by the same admin as **************, appears on PAGE 2 of the "Acura TSX" search!
i.e. 5 pages higher than the same admin's actual TSX site.

Go figure.

[Ray]

Originally posted by larchmont
This is really interesting. Here's an update:

-- Now they're down to page 7. :confused:
-- Club TSX is down to page 8.
-- This site still doesn't appear. (I checked down to page 15.)

And, maybe oddest of all, acura-cl.com, which I'm pretty sure is run by the same admin as **************, appears on PAGE 2 of the "Acura TSX" search!
i.e. 5 pages higher than the same admin's actual TSX site.

Go figure.

Yea it gets complicated and confusing..

[johnej]

figure what math 1 and 1 make 11 or the fact that google is just not biased enough to this forum??