OMG! They Killed LPF!

Jesuz, I just saw this -

http://laserpointerforums.com/f59/if-you-linked-back-lpf-ill-post-url-here-40886.html

Having links to you is good. Having relevant, appropriate links back to a couple of them can diminish that benefit, but is still OK.

But having a sticky'd page that lists all the pages linking to you and linking back to each one of then is NOT A GOOD IDEA.

Links to you are good. But KILL THAT PAGE!

Dang, it's like there's an official LPF "checklist" of ways to piss-off Google!

In any event, links from a handful of LPF loyalists that have their own small web sites, while nice, are not going to be able to replace thousands of incoming links accumulated over multiple years in Google's eyes.

We need to fix the actual problem here - and unfortunately, this won't do it!

It's like walking up to a guy whose leg just got bit-off by a lion, and instead of calling 911, handing him a band-aid!

I know ppl honestly think they are being helpful, but sometimes watching someone's friends trying to play "amateur SEO" with a site that's got serious problems, it's like parking a 2-year-old in front of a mirror, and handing him a burner!

Hi, seo
Nice to hear you're back again, hope it wasn't too serious an illness?

The reason YaBB content got wiped was because it started to cause glitches, and affected the server performance (this site is now on a dedicated server, with faster load times, so possibly improving PR a bit? I don't know how much google take load-times into consideration).

The larger URL scheme change would cause some problems, but in time, and after contacting many of the authors (especially on the bigger sites) to get them to fix the links, I'm sure much of that can be salvaged. If you want, we could put together a list of broken incoming links (obviously off-site, so not to kill the PR any further), and c0ld could do a mass-mail to them asking them to fix the links, or we as a community email the relevant people? It shouldn't be too hard to do a backlink search for *laserpointerforums*yaBB* and *laserpointerforums*laser_pointer_forums_3*?

You have to remember this site has only one admin, who has a full-time job, little spare time, and none of this was easily avoidable, due to the issues YaBB was causing. I don't follow the PR, but I can only imagine your pain watching it plummet...

i had to remove yabb b/c it was causing stability issues leaving it running.

i purchased a mod called vbseo to help with SEO stuff and worked with 2 separate consultants to configure it optimally.

the reason i moved from laser_pointer_forums_3/forum was the URL was too long and several people said it would hurt search rankings for certain pages.

And so tell me again, how exactly does search engine optimization help LPF?

I think of this more as a community than a business. If we were marketing a product to the general public, I could see why we'd want a high pagerank, but as it stands we're a small community with a very specific scope. All of the longstanding productive members here are a very niche group of DIY nerds, not the mainstream general public. I find the more this site is mentioned on sites like youtube, the more new users we get who are completely clueless and don't contribute to the community. Any time we're linked by a general mainstream site we get an influx of morons asking how to mod their 1mW ebay pointer into a 500mW RPL, and posts like what is the best way to down an airplane with a laser. Popularity is a detriment to a niche special interest website like this. The more users we get, the more notoriety and popularity we get, the worse the forum gets. Just saying.

I gotta agree with you on that one PL...
This is a community of Laser enthusiasts that share information amongst
themselves... they don't sell information to the outside world..

It should not be looked at as if it were a business... that is another animal..

As a business you would need to deal with the outside world... and page
ranking would be much more important in that context..


Jerry

Growth and change are synonymous, the server costs more to run than when it first started. We are always going to have new users come to this site because of our publicity. Part of SEO is making our links shorter, and the more sites that linkback to us create a higher pagerank.

While it may be nice to keep our community small and tight knit .. it will grow. SEO will help it to grow faster and that may be a new change for everyone. We all know Cold has been increasing advertising and putting donations in a prominent location on the main page. I'm sure this is to offset the cost of the server and help improve our community. One way to reduce the donations to increase the revenue generated from ads. The more people who click through on the google ads will help the site receive money. We are going to get bigger regardless it's just a matter of how fast and how quickly we can adapt to that change.

"Change is the essence of life, be willing to surrender what you are for what you could become"
- Unknown

Jon

Don't get me wrong.... I'm all for change and growth...
but the way I see it... LPF is still not a business...or we would be paying
monthly dues to post here.. and LPF would take a cut from anything sold
here... IMO

Jerry

OK, I'm gonna deal with the distractions first...

Then I'm gonna go into another thread, and deal with a PITA in 2 threads!

Then I'm gonna post my replies to the key ppl here...

First off -

If anyone disagrees with the reason I started this thread, they should have said so then. I got a lot of responses from members, and every single one of them agreed with me.

Please read the original post, and all of the replies by members to it, before criticizing.

Indeed, one of the ppl that originally agreed with this thread, has now made not one, but two posts apparently just trying to egg-on a dispute.

I will be responding to his post in another thread shortly, and suggest that he and his business carefully consider what I have to say, before continuing with any more such posts directed at me here.

Who ever claimed that only a commercial site is worried about searches?

We are not talking about creating value here. We are talking about value this site already has built-up over the years. The reason we have enough members to warrant the switch to the new forum. And then to a new server. The reason ppl find out what a driver is, instead of needlessly frying LD after LD, because their only reference source is Kipkay! We are trying to keep from loosing something very valuable to the community, that the site already possesses.

My original post covered 8 different issues - most of which are still in play. I brought up the 2 that have the most direct economic impact on the owner, and which he indicated in his earlier responses to this thread were among the most important of these concerns to him.

Regardless on how you see the purpose of this site, it is still a business asset. c0ld has previously contacted me in a professional capacity and indicated that his search rankings were important to him, so trying to argue to the contrary is meaningless. That he wants to retain the value of his asset (and which he has previously indicated elsewhere that he understands his PageRank alters that), is not an issue. It is whether or not he has been led astray by faulty technical advice. I am finishing a post to address that topic for him.

so possibly improving PR a bit? I don't know how much google take load-times into consideration

Click to expand...

No, it doesn't.

Nor do we have the leisure of time that you imply - please see my original post in this thread to see why.

But this situation has already put a major strain on me once, and I do not wish to have a repeat of that.

So rather than get into the details of the other assumptions of your post, I will address my technical discussion to c0ld's post directly.

He is, after all, the person who has the most economically to loose.

I already saw from looking at his inbound links where c0ld got himself even deeper into trouble, by following advice from random strangers on other forums.

c0ld is already aware that I correctly predicted what was going to happen here (and admitted to me as much). I am quite surprised that he does not remember that.

And now we are seeing it all come true. And getting worse as we speak!

msg to c0ld next...

i had to remove yabb b/c it was causing stability issues leaving it running.

Click to expand...

It was not writing. Or updating. All of the current activity was now on the new forum. The only thing it was doing was the occasional request from a search engine or link that would have otherwise been lost. If YaBB was able to run full-bore on shared hosting without crashing every 3 seconds, then how in the world could such light usage, running on a dedicated server, be such a problem?

And what problem could be so severe, that it justifies destroying something that takes years to build-up?

Like I said, watching someone use bundles of $100 bills as fuel for a campfire!

i purchased a mod called vbseo to help with SEO stuff

Click to expand...

Ah, the magic software package that is going to solve all your SEO problems. I just corrected SkyLasers on that same misconception. But you can see how well that approach is working out for him - he's currently got a PageRank of 1!

And like I also already told him, a few days ago (on a REAL SEO forum), I just advised someone who had WordPress on his home page with the "All In One SEO Pack" installed (the equivalent thing for WP as what you are talking about here), to move his blog OFF his homepage, and INTO a subdirectory, because the SEO limitations to his homepage by WP (even WITH the SEO add-in) were what was hurting his rankings!

...and worked with 2 separate consultants to configure it optimally.

Click to expand...

And yet your PageRank dropped from a 4, all the way down to a 1, and then eaked up to a weak 2 - I can see how well that strategy is working out for you!

Did they tell you just how significant a drop that really is? The 0-10 Toolbar Display is an approximation of your actual PageRank, and goes up exponentially for each value. Last we tested it (several years ago), the exponential factor was about 7 (it's likely gone up since then, as Google has to adjust it as the Internet gets larger). We know you originally had a strong 4, and that you currently have a weak 2. But let's make this as rosy as possible, shall we? We'll narrow the drop, and say you went from an average 4 to an average 2. And we'll assume the Internet hasn't grown at all and the exponential value hasn't increased from 7 (also unlikely).

So given our best-case scenario, here is the change in your ACTUAL PageRank value (the # used internally by Google) = 1 / (7^2)

That's right, the best-case is that your actual PageRank for LPF is now 2% of what it was before!

Given your lackadaisical attitude (and assuming your not high), I guess nobody bothered to inform you about that?

Boy, those guys did a bang-up job for ya there!

And if you want to see what happened to all of your PageRank, try doing the following search in Google -

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=link:www.laserpointerforums.com

Which comes up with this -



That's right, 53! And only 38 of them get past Google's similar page filter! -



And you'll also notice most of those are just internal links from your own site! The ones from external sites? Just 7!

the reason i moved from laser_pointer_forums_3/forum was the URL was too long and several people said it would hurt search rankings for certain pages.

Click to expand...

Actually, that's part of what I meant digging yourself in deeper by following advice from strangers on other forums - I came across that while I was trying to see what the hell had happened to your site in Google. -

http://www.vbseo.com/f2/advice-setup-my-site-34874/

It appears only 1 person actually claimed that, the others just though the URL would look prettier/nicer that way!

Of course, I guess you didn't consider that like many of the people giving SEO advice on forums, this guy might have been giving you shitty advice?

Being familiar with a lot of the top SEO guys out there (my competitors, after all), I didn't recognize this guy's name, so I decided to see who he was.

Turns-out he's not a full-time SEO at all - he's just an independent web designer, that fiddles with SEO on the side! Who's company web site is a WordPress Blog!

In fact, on his About Us page, where he described all his areas of expertise, he doesn't even list SEO as one of his skills!

c0ld, your own experience should have told you that SOMETHING was wrong - the original LPF forum was in a subdirectory also - what PageRank problems did you have with that???

In fact, out of that conversation, it turns out that YOU were actually the one closest to the truth(!), when you said -

my site already has quite a few links in google so i don't think its worth changing, is it?

Click to expand...

Now, I contend following his advice actually screwed-up your LPF listings in Google - while he claimed the opposite. But I have an open mind, so let's see for ourselves, shall we?

Let's try some Google searches that pull-up LPF pages and see! -

Heruursciences diode -
http://www.google.com/search?q=Heruursciences+diode
which goes to -
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/l...105-heruursciences-diode-grab-bag-thread.html
Broken link, forwards to h/p!

airy disc example -
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/laser_pointer_forums_3/forum/optics/33978-example-airy-disk.html
Again, broken link!

o-like dilda -
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/laser_pointer_forums_3/forum/companies/25618-o-like-shipping.html
Broken link!

dragon diffraction gratings -
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/l...ics/40927-best-place-difraction-gratings.html
Broken link!

fda laser LOC -
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/l...gal-issues/40353-can-fda-get-us-facebook.html
Broken link!

perhaps better luck with a review?

RomiRed laser -
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/l...views/37922-likeitbrights-romired-review.html
Broken link!

parts, maybe?

PBS cubes -
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/l...rum/buy-sell-trade/41245-405nm-pbs-cubes.html
Broken link!

perhaps a video?

viper 125mw video -
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/l...er-125mw-vs-o-like-80-100mw-module-video.html
Broken link!

a member, perhaps?

jayrob member -
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/laser_pointer_forums_3/forum/members/jayrob.html
Broken link!

news about new server?

lpf new server -
http://www.laserpointerforums.com/l...41339-june-19-we-moving-dedicated-server.html
Broken Link!

All of these are results from Google tonight. I could go on forever - you really got your Google listings royally screwed-over by following this guy's advice!

In fact, it turns-out that by following this advice, you made the EXACT SAME MISTAKE I warned you about before - making major changes to the structure of a large site, before allowing Google to catch-up on the new URLs! The only difference is you did it to the new forum this time, instead of the old one!

Even worse, your older URL format with the descriptive forum names (like green-lasers, instead of f##) was actually BETTER SEO-wise - you took a step backwards!

And then your terse, dismissive comment above is EXACTLY the same way that you initially responded to my prior warning - before you came to your senses in reply to my starting this thread, and apologized for doing so...

(thread missing? - but as quoted in Post #30 above)

After what I was put through last time, I would have expected you to treat me a bit better now.

Damn it, c0ld, I had to expend an extraordinary amount of time & effort trying to get your attention last time to keep you from driving LPF off a cliff (to the point that it adversely affected my health!) Doing this once was bad enough, but don't make me go through the same thing twice - I can't do it!

Yep, many of the links on Google don't work anymore. The same goes with pages that people may have bookmarked.

Please make the old URLs redirect to the correct locations.

Aahhh shit hit the fan again?
Wheres mah popcorn?

Things have been VERY hectic lately, been busy putting-out fires since July 4th holiday, but wanted to drop-by with a quick update.

First off - Thanks c0ld for deleting that sticky'd link thread ref'd above - that should help LPF some! :yh:

Second, I have been doing some digging into the LPF ranking issues when I had some spare time, and have discovered an additional cause for LPF's current PageRank problems, that is keeping your site's PR down well below what it would otherwise be. Luckily, it is also something that does not involve YaBB, and is very easy to fix. :yh: Will provide more details when I get the chance.

Finally, Google somehow managed to find my new site b4 it even had any incoming links - and it is ALREADY coming-up for searches in Google! :yh: Including Top 10 for the primary target phrase - out of about 4 MILLION laser-related web sites!!! And even showing-up ABOVE a certain "instructables" video!

And that's without any incoming links yet, and a PageRank of ZERO! :huh:
More info on last item now available in update here -
http://laserpointerforums.com/f44/new-web-site-seeking-feedback-27773.html

More details on the other topics to follow shortly...