Carlos
Well-known member
Hm? That shouldn't be happening. Last time I checked, it was ranked on first page. WTF.
EDIT: Here's my search:
I own Forum.com and Forums.com - What should I do?
- Thread starter System0
- Start date
EDIT: Here's my search:
System0
Active member
You're not there for "cod forum" but if I remove the quotes you are in the 6th position - behind sites such as http://www.codforum.org.uk/, http://www.codforum.com/ and http://www.cod4boards.com/forum/.
System0
Active member
Carlos
Well-known member
*groans* I see what you mean now, I pressed that search button and it shows exactly what you said, SystemO. 
But on the positive side: Searching codforum nets me on 3rd position!
Even then, my analytics are showing that I have captured more than I could imagine from both searches.
EDIT: Here ya go, this is over the lifetime of the analytics... (April 15th, 2011 to now)
You see? Collateral Damage. Once I put up a new skin for CODForums, I am very positive that the visitors that searched cod forum will start looking at mine over that ugly vB4 codforum.
But on the positive side: Searching codforum nets me on 3rd position!
Even then, my analytics are showing that I have captured more than I could imagine from both searches.
EDIT: Here ya go, this is over the lifetime of the analytics... (April 15th, 2011 to now)
You see? Collateral Damage. Once I put up a new skin for CODForums, I am very positive that the visitors that searched cod forum will start looking at mine over that ugly vB4 codforum.
CTXMedia
Well-known member
I'd expect more people to naturally search for forum rather than forums; think car forum, cycling forum, computer forum, COD forum
, etc. - forum is just more a natural choice than forums (IMHO).
You can use the Google keyword checker to research whether forum or forums would be more popular for your new forum(s) name: https://adwords.google.co.uk/o/Targ...&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS
Although I just tried it with cycling - horse - pet and cycling had more searches for forum, horse was forum, pet was forums (by quite a margin!) - so that sort of blows my theory out the window.
Hell - just put them in a hat and pick one ...
, etc. - forum is just more a natural choice than forums (IMHO).You can use the Google keyword checker to research whether forum or forums would be more popular for your new forum(s) name: https://adwords.google.co.uk/o/Targ...&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS
Although I just tried it with cycling - horse - pet and cycling had more searches for forum, horse was forum, pet was forums (by quite a margin!) - so that sort of blows my theory out the window.
Hell - just put them in a hat and pick one ...
System0
Active member
I noticed that too. Some niches forum provides more results and in other niches it's the other way around.
I just did a search on adwords and the "domain forum" phrase for my niche gets around 50% more global searches per month. It says competition is low for these phrases though. I reckon I could keep using domainforums.com as the brand but use "Domain Forum" as the site name. I've seen a few forums.com websites using this technique.
I just did a search on adwords and the "domain forum" phrase for my niche gets around 50% more global searches per month. It says competition is low for these phrases though. I reckon I could keep using domainforums.com as the brand but use "Domain Forum" as the site name. I've seen a few forums.com websites using this technique.
Anthony Parsons
Well-known member
You found my point exactly from your own trial searches... hitting the nail on the head with your response. Branding is everything for your name status, domain name is a branding factor, not a ranking factor, unless directly searched. You got it right with on page factors being the priority. Copywriting is still today king of the hill for ranking in Google, along with recent content status. That means, Google has not only complicated search results via localisation, they've also mixed it up by showing their users sites that are frequently updated and fresh with relevant, contextual content.
Mate, when in doubt go do some searches using Google Adwords keyword tool and get your ducks in a row. You can use a domain abcdefgxyz.com and still rank highly for the term you want, providing it contains two words not one. The effort needed comes down to how demanding the term is versus how obscure and irrelevant a term is.
Anthony Parsons
Well-known member
You're already on the right track then and I retract my prior statement about using it... nice work. It seems you are heading in all the right directions.
Anthony Parsons
Well-known member
Carlos, do you understand localisation? Your forum isn't #1 on my searches, nor even on the first page on some searches for your keyword/s. What you see in your location is not what others will see in their location, even from the same datacenter. Localisation is specific to nearest town, city, state, bordering states, distant states and then International.
System0
Active member
Yes I agree. Content is something that I will be working on and will be trying to find some time to write about a range of topics over the next few weeks.
One thing that many people forget is that the domain name heavily influences the anchor text that people link to a website with. The owner of abcdefgxyz.com might be targeting the keyword "concept cars" for example though many people will still link to the site using abcdefgxyz.
I've witnessed this first hand in a number of my websites. About 4 or 5 years ago I founded a blog called BloggingTips.com. I paid $1,250 for the domain before launching the site but I knew how important the domain name was. I encountered dozens if not hundreds of other blogging advice blogs who had different domain names but were all targeting the "Blogging Tips" keyphrase. I was able to jump ahead of more popular blogs for that term pretty quickly because I had the domain name.
A big reason for this was that whenever someone linked to my site, they automatically linked using the anchor text "BloggingTips" or "Blogging Tips". This wasn't the case with other websites, despite the efforts of the website owner to target that domain name.
The $1,250 proved to be a bargain due to the amount of traffic the "Blogging Tips" phrase brought me via Google. I can't remember the exact number of visits per day though that was the number 1 keyphrase for my site and it brought in more traffic than the next 10 keyphrases/keywords combined.
Anthony Parsons
Well-known member
Completely agree for niche sites.
You can have my site as an example for this. I have domain http://www.adminforum.com/ and their is another site on the same niche as http://www.adminforums.org with an s. How ever the site with an S came first, so it gets more higher ranking than me. But having not an S in my domain i also picked it really fast and if you now search for Admin Forum my site is on 4 or 5 position.
Basically, it has come to my attention that it is the content and activity that describes the ranking and not the domains. They do have a some worth in a users friendly way but not effects search engines much. As i am getting more and more members and topics. My rankings are going high. Everyday i get 10k- Alexa rank and have got to a lot less then before. I also got to the first page of google from 6th page.
Basically, it has come to my attention that it is the content and activity that describes the ranking and not the domains. They do have a some worth in a users friendly way but not effects search engines much. As i am getting more and more members and topics. My rankings are going high. Everyday i get 10k- Alexa rank and have got to a lot less then before. I also got to the first page of google from 6th page.
System0
Active member
Cool. It's good to see a comparison of two established forums competing for similar keywords. I do agree with you - as your forum grows and it has more content, you should see your site climb up the rankings. I also noticed that someone has http://www.adminforums.com and is planning on developing a forum there using XenForo. It seems like a very competitive niche.
Great logo by the way
Carlos
Well-known member
Go back up, and read what I said: http://xenforo.com/community/thread...com-what-should-i-do.30549/page-2#post-349680
My posts are placed in moderation, so until Brogan or another mod approves it, I can't say anything.
Your own search on Google can be misleading, cause Google tracks you, and know you are interested in that domain name, so they bring that up. It might help using a private session, but I am not entirely sure. In fact, I am not sure how much importance your own search history plays into the results, but I have noticed some discrepancies between my own and my users search results, even when forcing same localization. I might also be completely wrong here, but I am pretty sure Google puts weight to your search history.
Anthony Parsons
Well-known member
And that is another excellent point raised. If logged into a Google account, or even using Google a lot and you've +1'd your own ranking, on your computer you will get a different ranking than if you logged out of everything, cleared your cache and cookies, then did another search... which will likely produce just like Magnus stated, a different result.
There is also what I like to refer to as "The Google Anniversary" that occurs with every website each year it's online. When your site has decent traffic to it, you will actually notice just after an annual anniversary that the site gains more trust, thus you see a slight traffic increase due to nothing other than site / domain age. I have my main forums online date, and in the week after it each year I can see a clear and distinctive jump in daily traffic... "The Google Anniversary."
Carlos
Well-known member
And you're right. A lot of people on these forums think that I am defensive at all times, but I agree. However, I clear out my cache every time I finish my session. That means every time I am finished with my work, those cookies, the internet history is gone. And even then, my google account [and I wasn't even logged in while searching in that screenshot] doesn't track it, I turned it off the minute I found out Google's tactics.
I try to be positive that my search is without any previous cookies available.
Damnit. Anthony does it again.
You have to remember they also consolidated their privacy terms lately, and I am pretty sure the tracking data is shared between their service (for example, YouTube has advertised vBulletin to me recently through their video ads, on completely unrelated videos, and almost every video I watch). I think the only reliable way to determine how you do on a specific query is through the webmaster tool and average position.
Cool. It's good to see a comparison of two established forums competing for similar keywords. I do agree with you - as your forum grows and it has more content, you should see your site climb up the rankings. I also noticed that someone has http://www.adminforums.com and is planning on developing a forum there using XenForo. It seems like a very competitive niche.
Great logo by the way
Thanks for appreciating the logo
There are many other forums that are my competitors in this niche with almost same keywords. If you search for "Admin Forum" on google you will see lots of them. But i don`t take it negatively and instead gets inspired by it that there are many others who also want to be in my shoes. But i will not let them do it and get more dedicated to my work and work more harder to get them far behind me.
Google always uses search history into consideration when searching. If you had an site that you visit regularly then it will come on the first page and even sometimes on the first place for its relative keywords.
To know the exact position of my site. I open an incognito window in Chrome and search on Google without logging in to Google account. Incognito window don`t uses shared cookies and set its own also clears them completely when closing. In that way Google don`t have any search history of yours nor do have any cookies to track your previous record which leads you to providing the real search results.
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