Talk:User group meeting & agenda 17 September 2008

Finding Wiki pages in Google search engine results
I did some looking in Google and found that the FamilySearch Wiki does not show up in the first page of results very often, and if I type "link:wiki.familysearch.org" (leave off the quotes), I only get 17 pages linking to the site.

One of the problems may be that on some pages I see everything run together in the name of the site so it shows up on the wiki pages involved as 'FamilySearchWiki'. In fact, if you try that versus the phrase 'FamilySearch Wiki', you get 21,700 hits in Google. If you go for 'FamilySearch Wiki', you get 64,000+ hits. Putting everything under one or the other will help although I am finding documents such as genealogy society newsletters that use the run-together version of the name when talking about it.

Another problem is that the old Plone site is at times taking precedence in search results instead of the present version using Wikimedia software. Given that, is there a way to direct people from the Plone site to the present site, while leaving that up until we are done with that one?

Another possible matter may be the ordering of things on the Windows title bar, which takes the &lt;TITLE&gt; tag for the article name and puts what is in that tag before hte name 'FamilySearch Wiki'. Does that make a difference what comes before what with search engine results? Also, the name 'FamilySearchWiki' is showing up in the title bars, not 'FamilySearch Wiki'. Google sometimes does not see these as FamilySearch Wiki pages as a result as well. See above for the difference in the number of hits and how it seems to be splitting up the search results.

I'm thinking we need to be consious of search engine optimization now on the site, especially as more people are finding it and more conten is being added. So, if this is done right whatever that is, it will only draw more people to it. JamesAnderson 17:06, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

James - having experiences with the search engine results, it has to do with more links there are, the greater the better results will be for the Wiki. Nothing more or less. dsammy 04:49, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that is exactly it. But we have some things under 'FamilySearch Wiki' and other things under 'FamilySearchWiki'. Most people are not going to use the run-together version, so that is why some people are not finding it. It's best to consolidate all the title bar entries under one or the other, and in my opinion it will be best to have those always say 'FamilySearch Wiki' as part of what displays. Usually that is the name of the article followed by the site name. The best solution I can think of is to be sure that everything reads 'FamilySearch Wiki' when we put the name in articles, and also have that same thing consistently on the title bars that display on the top of the browser window's title bar. Consistency will help everyone find the site and what they are looking for in it. JamesAnderson 15:48, 14 September 2008 (UTC)