Anna,
I was able to successfully improve the search engine hits to my groups place here.
The main page under the description is one of the keys to help bring search engine finders to the group.
Looking at our main page here, you will notice a few things.
- The first 5 words are keywords that the crawlers on the main web page looks for in the description field.? Thus,Yanmar Tractor Owners Group are set by the crawlers as the page TAGS.
- The number of times you use a key word is critical.? Thus, our word is Yanmar.? BUT, it can not be a repeated word and used one in a sentence.? The crawlers logic has to see the description as a field of balanced information.
- Lastly, it will use the last sentence as combinational occurrence words.? Not quite like a TAG, but in combination with a TAG. So, if someone did a search engine lookup for Yanmar YM3000, my GroupsIO page will be ranked on the first or second page vs. a dozen pages down a long listing of finds.
?
I had used a digital forensics tool that simulates web page crawlers and how they compile search engine data. The before and after effects are very impressive.?? Search engines like Google, DuckDuckGo, StartPage, DogPile, etc, the GroupsIO page ranks within the top 5 listings now for finding the group. :)?? In one weeks time after the alignment to find the group, membership jumped by 30 people joining.
Under the ADMIN tab, you can click on the ACTIVITY tab.? This will help you understand who joins via the web site and who joins via email.? For our group right now, it's 50/50.? So, the search engine rankings have helped.
?
Hope this helps you and other groups here.? The tool really isn't needed after knowing what information the tool described as being essential for the crawlers to find you.
BMaverick
BMaverick