Getting my forum on Google

[Anon]

I started a forum for parents of kids with chronic urticaria...its using "freeforums"....what is the best way to get this into search engines?

[John81]

That's a great idea Suzy!

I don't have any suggestions to offer, but I do pray this works out very well for you.

[Anon]

Well I've been on an email list for awhile but most of them are middle aged women. Only a handful of us are moms of kids with chronic urticaria. So far the forum is very slow going but I know there's more parents like us out there, I'd just like to figure out how to reach them.

[John81]

Reaching the intended audience will be the hard part. This is especially true when dealing with a niche group.

Of course, I had a hard enough time finding this place because of all the garbage that falls into the "Christian" category, so a popular topic/title can have it's problems too.

[Guest Guest]

I think Google spider bots (or whatever they are) will find your website and people who do searches on that issue will be able to see your website in a google search, eventually. It's just a matter of time...

At least that's how I think it works... it seems that whenever I'm looking for an answer to some weird question (whether it's computer or health related), Google always pulls up the most relevant forum with people discussing the same thing.

[Anon]

Yeah I know the bots go through but I've been checking and so far nothing, even when I type in the exact words.... oh well.

[Pastor Matt]

You need quality sites to link to you. The more quality sites that link to you, the higher you will be ranked.

There are also a few other tricks, I've gotten sites listed in Google in hours. :smile

[Anon]

You need quality sites to link to you. The more quality sites that link to you, the higher you will be ranked.

There are also a few other tricks, I've gotten sites listed in Google in hours. :smile

I linked here. That's quality, right?

AND?!?!?!..........?????????? :cooldude:

[Danny Carlton]

I started a forum for parents of kids with chronic urticaria...its using "freeforums"....what is the best way to get this into search engines?

I own and run the site at http://CongenitalAdrenalHyperplasia.org. It's ranked #1 for "Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia" on every search engine I've checked. Here's how I got the #1 spot...

1. Include the keywords in the domain name
2. Include the keywords in the title on the main page
3. Include the keyword as many times as legitimately possible on the main page.
4. Include the keywords in

tags as often as possible
5. Include the keywords in the alt part of the image elements.
6. Find which sites the search engines list on the first 2 or 3 pages for that keyword, and work very hard at trying to get those sites to link to you.
7. Get site that are highly ranked for closely related topics (general health etc.) and work hard at getting those site to link to you.
8. Have a nice, professional design for your site, so you'll look legit when asking other sites to link to you.
9. Links to as many of the sites that are listed in the first few pages of a search, as you can.
10. Make sure you have linked from the main page of your site an "About Us" page, a "Contact Us" page, a "Terms of Service" page and a "Privacy Policy" page. (this makes your page look more legit to both other sites as well as to search engine bots.)
11. Avoid unrelated outgoing links as this reduces your sites relevance to the keywords you are trying to dominate.
12. Avoid free hosting sites as this also makes your site look less legit. Domains are under $10 a year and hosting can be as low as $5 a month. Matt has hosting starting at $6.99 for 400Mb space and 40G bandwidh (http://4joystech.com/). I offer hosting starting at $5 a month for 100Mb space and 1G bandwidth (http://familynethome.com). My site mentioned above has been up for over ten years and now uses about 2Gb space and uses about 20Gb bandwidth a month. It get's about 2,500 pageviews a day from about 400 unique visiters. You won't use anywhere near that starting out, but having your own site will increase your legitimacy and thereby increase your traffic.

[Anon]

Thanks for the tips! I have my cake site through Matt, don't know that I'd want to pay for a forum right now though...

[Anon]

Ok here is a question...I have webspace with Anchor (Souzas) for my cake site, and also free webspace with Comcast. Is there any way to just purchase a domain and then have a forum put on one or the other spaces? Maybe preferably the Comcast space?

I don't mind putting down $25 or something to get a forum started but I can't think about putting down any more than that, my husband wouldn't want me paying money for a forum that isn't really necessary.

[Pastor Matt]

If you use the Comcast space you can either enter the nameservers they provide or just forward the new domain name to the Comcast domain name.

You need to make sure that Comcast will allow you to use a database to install the forum on. If you need any help with that just let me know.

[Anon]

Come to think of it, I think our asst pastor wife was going to put her cookie site on her Comcast, but they told her she could not put a domain there. Never mind. :smile

I'll just try to promote the freeforum one, although I checked and not ONE bot has visited yet in a month!

[Bakershalfdozen]

Would it help if some of us searched for it on Google a few times? :Green

[JerryNumbers]

I started a forum for parents of kids with chronic urticaria...its using "freeforums"....what is the best way to get this into search engines?

Numerous post mentioning urticaria being as that is the purpose of the group. I searched for it and I got many results on it, with post being made mentioning it yours will be added to the results.

That is as more post are made the search engines whether it be Google or others will start picking it up and it will start showing up in searches.

Back in early 2005 when I started a group for the air force base I served at, as more post were made mentioning this base by name and or air planes, and or squadrons, they started showing up in all the search engines.

This is something where persistence pays off.

Below shows how the posting has increased, we now have just a couple less that 300.


Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
2008 109 230 176 171 332 271 267 47
2007 53 39 203 123 36 72 99 118 263 523 249 117
2006 13 16 157 76 44 47 29 15 23 30 35 53
2005 13 46 44 15 17 11 6 6 5 7 27 6


No, searching for it don't really help being as their crawlers searches all thru the web is what will bring it to the forefront.