Changes to Attract New Members

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#141 Post by BenThere » Sat Jan 09, 2016 9:42 pm

Is there opportunity to appeal to the Cargo world? Pprune never served it very well, but as one with about 7 years of overnight and international freight dues-paying, freight dogs have a lot to say. I'll leave the steering of them to us to wiser web techs, but I think there is opportunity there to build traffic.

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#142 Post by Boac » Tue Jan 19, 2016 9:59 am

Alison's 'Conversation thread' in 'Members Only' appears to have run its course.

The question that appears to be unanswered is what is wanted for the future membership? Alison's post #53 in 'Changes to attract new members' http://ops-normal.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=677&start=40#p28365 suggested we seek 4 classes of 'members' and there was little progress from there. At present we have stagnated at 'former members of the other place'. The lack of search visibility for the site is preventing us being 'discovered' other than by word of mouth. Is this what is wanted? A search for 'Aviators, Aviatrices' certainly finds us, as does 'ops-normal.org' - but if searchers knew the URL, they would not need to search and few will search for 'Aviatrices' I think?

I feel that after 6 months of existence, while 177 is a reasonable membeship, it is not sustainable. (No, I am not twinned with 'TL'..........)

I proposed a change in page coding to move us onto the search table. This is my post http://ops-normal.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&p=36966#p36966.

What say we all of the way forward? Visible or not? My last sentence was
"I think it will help 'we' be 'found' if that is the wish.". Therein lies the question - static or dynamic?

Maybe, Alison, your views are against expansion? If not, what does the other 175 reckon?

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#143 Post by admin » Tue Jan 19, 2016 10:30 am

I chose not to reply to your posting Boac as I felt certain that my reply would have caused offence. But as you insist.

Complaining that we weren't being indexed as an aviation forum was somewhat premature, as only two days prior I had made significant changes to address this issue. Unfortunately Search Engine indexing isn't in the same league as DNS propagations - within 24 hrs or so, meaning we have to wait for Google and others to get around to it. I had informed you of the changes. [-X

Secondly quoting sections of HTML is somewhat archaic as all code nowadays is generated by PHP, and I mean all code - titles, headings, Meta Tags, the lot. Changing PHP source code is not recommended as new versions are released on a regular basis to allow for discoveries of new security vulnerabilities and to counteract hacking. Thus one needs to write PHP routines to make changes which are then linked in at runtime.

I run a development server specifically for testing purposes before I implement any changes as I value the stability of this forum and the service it provides. There is no "team" responsible for the operation of this site, just little old me trying to do her best in difficult circumstances, not some twenty year old script kiddie. I turn seventy two in a weeks time. So if you want to know the truth I take offence at your inferences, but have been too polite to say so, so far.

Alison
PS We have been running for less than five months, and have gone through two domain name changes in that time. From the original http://www.pproone.org to http://www.pprruned.org, and then to http://www.ops-normal.org. Search engines do take time to recognise these and react. Plus moving to a commercial host. So please be assured a huge amount has happened to this site in those five months and will continue to do so.

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#144 Post by Capetonian » Tue Jan 19, 2016 10:58 am

I know less than the square root of sod all about SEO and DNS and PHP and stuff.

I'll have my say here. I think Alison has done a grand job and so have most of the contributors, the exception being the handful who've come along to pour scorn and then run back to Mummy's apron strings.

The question then is what can we do to ensure that this thrives and prospers?

Is just posting stuff on here going to achieve that growth if search engines don't pick it up?

Are we relying on people coming here as a result of finding it serendipitously or do we need to spread the word?

I have no idea, this well outside my sphere of understanding.

Much as I dislike, and consequently shun, YouTwatFaecesbook and all social media, do we need to be referenced on it? Are we? Maybe we are, how would I know?

Alison? I would like to think that I and other like minded individuals could help.

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#145 Post by Boac » Tue Jan 19, 2016 11:00 am

Well, firstly, Alison, you will have to work hard to cause me 'offence, so don't let that worry you and I am sorry you felt that way. After all, you did ask for 'conversation' and with 'one-person-bands' it is often difficult for others to keep up with events.

Secondly, I saw your post on Jan 14th telling me of the "intention to gradually ease access for new members" but nothing more, hence my post on 15th.

Regarding PHP/HTML - it may be 'archaic', but since I have no access to your PHP or hta's I had little choice but to use 'code'!

Lastly on search 'delay', we obviously have different experiences. Using Google webmaster, requesting re-crawls and re-submitting new site maps have always produced rapid results - a few days, sometimes hours.

Anyway, as the well-known TOP expression goes, it is 'your train set' and I look forward to the results.

Don't forget a lot of us are working hard on your behalf.

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#146 Post by probes » Tue Jan 19, 2016 11:06 am

I'm sure Boac won't be offended by the little old you - maybe he's just a bit impatient... youknow, just what men are... o:-)
- ach, there's his post to confirm and reinforce my belief in mankind!


- anyway, I guess everybody are totally busy at times (like me for a while, and still for some while to come), so I wouldn't worry about the post count. More aviation news would certainly be good - but, honestly, I've been somewhat discouraged by TOP to post these, even if they're just news comprehensible to a layman as well :).

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#147 Post by admin » Tue Jan 19, 2016 11:30 am

Boac, we have been operational as http://www.ops-normal.org for only two weeks for God's sake. To all intents and purposes as far as search engines are concerned we are a brand spanking new site. Discussions were held here as to why we should change and were approved - to divorce ourselves from TOP in it's entirity.

Capetonian wrote:The question then is what can we do to ensure that this thrives and prospers?
Is just posting stuff on here going to achieve that growth if search engines don't pick it up?

In the two weeks since the changeover I have implemented SEO Site Maps and SEO Meta Tags, plus a significant reorganisation of the aviation forums. These changes will significantly improve our visibility, and hopefully attract new members. These changes aren't going to have an instantaneous affect, they will take time. The only request I would make is that members try to post as much interesting aviation content as possible. Trawl the Aviation Herald for instance, add personal knowledge and experiences, and then post about them. We need METARS and NOTAMS like t'other place. :)

Alison

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#148 Post by admin » Tue Jan 19, 2016 5:17 pm

Giving some thought to the issue of Google rankings. Our site IS being indexed by Google. Entering the following into Google "site:ops-normal.org, aviation, forum" exactly as shown gives 2000 plus hits. The real issue is that we aren't acquiring any ranking with Google, BECAUSE no one uses Google to find our site.

If every member were to enter "ops-normal, aviation, forum" into a Google search box, say twice a day and then paging down to access it, would have the effect of moving us up the rankings. Doing the same for other search engines should have a similar effect with them.

Alison
PS. Incidently a Google search on "aviation forum" gives 75,000,000 hits. Every man and his dog seems to have an aviation forum. What can we do that is different?

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#149 Post by probes » Wed Jan 20, 2016 8:33 am

OMG!
That's discouraging (the number!)
But I did do the giggle-trick. :)

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#150 Post by Boac » Wed Jan 20, 2016 9:23 am

OK - taking my courage in both hands here......... this is what has always worked for me. NB I post this with good intentions and for the benefit of all who wish to run any site! It works. My last 'hint' is to have a Google Webmaster Account - loads of ways to 'nudge' Google included there.

I have highlighted the relevant bits. Incidentally, this man's website has an excellent 'brief' for those who are new to the game of websites.

==========================================================================

How to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking on Google
Optimising Your Website so that it ranks higher in Google's search engine results

How to Improve Your Search Engine Ranking on Google by Christopher Heng

When I first started as a webmaster, there were numerous search engines around. Nowadays, though, we are, for the most part, left with only Google and Bing, with Google providing the majority of visitors to most websites, including thesitewizard.com. This article provides some tips on how you can improve the position of your site in the search engine results on Google.

Improving Your Site's Placement on Google's Search Engine Results

Google ranks a page according to a large number of factors. Exactly what these factors are is apparently a trade secret, although there are number of well-known things that contribute to the ranking of a page.

Links Pointing to Your Website

One of the factors that contribute to a web page being considered "important" is the number of links pointing to that page. For example, if your page has 100 quality links leading to it, it will be ranked higher (in Google's estimation) than one that only has 20.

But what are "quality" links"? These are links from other popular pages, that is, pages that have, themselves, many (quality) links pointing to them. (Yeah, I know. My definition is circular. And it's possible that the search engine has other factors that determine the quality of a link.)

Anyway, in general, since Google ranks your pages according to the number of links pointing at your page, your site will do better if it has more links pointing to it.

Your Title Tag

Google seems to give weight to the title of your page.By title, I mean the text that is sandwiched between the HTML <TITLE> tags in the <HEAD> section of your web page. If you use a Web editor that automatically inserts a title like "New Document", remember to change it to some meaningful text with your keywords inside to reap the benefit of this feature. Otherwise, your site will only feature in the search results when someone looks for "New Document".

Note: by "keywords", I mean the words people will use when searching for your site. For example, if your site sells bicycles, then one keyword for it would be "bicycles", since that's the word you'd expect people to use when searching for bicycles.

Your Page Must Have the Words You Think People Will Search For

Besides the title tag, if you want your website to feature in Google's results when someone searches for a set of words, say "Widget X", those words must actually occur on your page. Think about it from the point of view of a search engine. If you don't put the words "Widget X" somewhere on the page, how is the search engine supposed to know that the page deals with that topic? The search engine is not a human being who can draw inferences from the general tone and content of the page. Even if it can handle some synonyms, you're going to compete with other sites who have specifically placed those words on their site.

I know this point seems self-evident (once you've come across it). However, from experience, many webmasters (me included) don't seem to realise ("realize" in US English) that when they are first starting out.


Keyword-laden Links

According to a paper published by one of Google's founders, if the links pointing to your page has some words in them, those words will be regarded by Google as an additional indication of the content of your page. For example, a link with the text "Cheap Shoe Store" pointing at your page will cause Google to think that your page is relevant when someone searches for "cheap shoe store".

However, my recommendation is that if you think a particular set of words is relevant to your site, don't rely on some random site on the Internet to link to you with those words. Put them directly on your page.

Other Google Tips

Use a Search Engine Site Map

Although not strictly necessary, if you find that Google (or Bing, for that matter) is not able to discover some pages on your website, create a site map. I don't mean the type of user site map that you see on thesitewizard.com (which is primarily meant for human beings), but a site map that is specially designed for search engines. While such a site map does not guarantee that Google will index and list every page, it will at least help it discover those missing pages if your site design is such that it has impeded the search engine from finding them before.

Check Your Robots.txt File

Like all respectable search engines, Google will read and obey a special text file on your website called the "robots.txt" file. You can control where search engines are allowed to go with this file. A corollary of this is that you can also inadvertantly block the search engine from going to certain parts of your site. It's generally a good idea to create a robots.txt file for your website, even if it's an empty file with zero bytes (which means that search engines are allowed to index everything on your site).
ALT text on Images

If you have been placing images on your website without bothering to place ALT text, now is a good time to add them. An "ALT text" (or alternate text) is just a way of putting a brief description (using words) of what your picture shows. They are needed by the software used by the blind so that they know what's in the picture. Since all search engines, including Google, are essentially blind, relying on words, they also need the ALT text. The description you give in the ALT text is treated like the words occurring on your web page, although I don't know if they are regarded as being of equal importance.

The META Keywords Tag is Ignored (MY EDIT - While this is certainly true for Google, it is NOT for some other search engines)

The Google search engine ignores the META keywords tag, and has always done so. If you have received spam from some wannabe search engine optimisation "specialist" telling you that you need to add this to your site, think twice about hiring him/her, since this recommendation already gives you a hint of the extent of his/her knowledge.

Dynamic Pages and Google

Like all modern search engines (yeah, all 2 of them), Google is able to index dynamically generated pages, so long as a link to those pages exists somewhere. For example, a page like "http://example.com/showstuff.php?page=19" can be indexed by Google, so you don't really need to rewrite your URLs if you can't be bothered.

If you have a dynamically generated page that you think should be indexed, just make sure you put a link to it somewhere on your site. This applies to all web pages that you want indexed anyway, so even if you don't understand what I mean by "dynamic page", it doesn't matter. Make sure that all the pages of your site can be found through at least one link on your site. If they are not linked to from somewhere, no one will be able to find it, neither Google nor your visitors (unless they are psychic).

Disabling the Caching of Your Page Will Not Affect Your Page Rank

In ancient history, it was claimed that Google would penalise pages that forbade it from caching their pages. As you know, the Google search engine caches the pages it indexes unless otherwise instructed. To avoid problems with people who dislike this, they allow sites to instruct Google not to cache those pages.

Google have ("has" in US English) apparently publicly denied that disabling caching would affect the page's ranking in any way. I tend to believe their claim.

Don't Waste Your Time With The Google Toolbar's Page Rank

In prehistoric times, you could add something known as the Google Toolbar to your web browser, and get something known as the "Page Rank" shown for any site you visit. In those days, the "Page Rank" would give you an idea of how important Google thought your site was.

Nowadays, the Page Rank is only one of apparently zillions of factors used by Google in ranking a website. They also discourage people from focusing on the Page Rank, and as a result, do not actually update the rank displayed on the toolbar in a timely fashion. (That is, the rank shown is often many months out of date.) In fact, I'm not sure if the page rank is even shown on the toolbar anymore.

In other words, it's not worth your time to install the toolbar.

=================================
Every man and his dog seems to have an aviation forum. What can we do that is different?
Naturally, but they are not all on page 1 or 2! There are lots of other relevant 'search' words needed - the more the merrier, as they say. Even a common word like 'Pilots' brings TOP onto page 6 of Google - not bad when you think about the size of that search. One of the reasons - the word is in the title - and, as it happens, in the meta name="description" tag.

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#151 Post by admin » Wed Jan 20, 2016 1:45 pm

Congratulations Boac, you have definitely got the hang of the cut and paste function in the editor. Next week's lesson will be on how to do it using your freshly-taught CRM techniques, so the Captain doesn't seek to have you ejected at altitude.

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#152 Post by Boac » Wed Jan 20, 2016 2:04 pm

Well, upset you again, I see, but thanks for the encouraging progress report. I had a funny feeling you would react that way. As I once had to tell a particularly 'difficult' Icelandic F/O - "CRM depends on having a resource in the cockpit to manage".

Cut and Paste is far more useful when you want to highlight text, don't you find? I struggle to highlight text on some-one else's web page, but then I'm just not clever.

The simple fact which you seem to be ignoring is that NO-ONE is likely to search for 'Ops-Normal.org'. Hey ho.

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#153 Post by admin » Wed Jan 20, 2016 3:24 pm

CRM - When the PiC is fighting cross-winds and down-drafts on short finals is not the time to start a long winded discussion on the merits of different engine spooling up times.

To put that into context, down here it's the middle of a very hot Summer with day time temps in excess of 40 degC and nights 30, and I have limited air conditioning. At 72, I don't do hot temps as well as I did fifty years ago down the Gulf. So do I give a fcuk - No. In a few weeks time when it starts to cool down I will give your comments some consideration.

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#154 Post by limeygal » Wed Jan 20, 2016 5:40 pm

At the risk of Admin tearing me a new one, I will play devil's advocate. I am getting very mixed signals here. I understood that our suggestions had been asked for, but they don't seem to be particularly welcomed. We can't do anything about the weather and we all have our problems. We all appreciate what you have done Alison, and we understand this is your train set, but we all have a stake in this and have supported it from day one. I really don't know what you expect from us. I await incoming :) :YMHUG:

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#155 Post by om15 » Wed Jan 20, 2016 8:06 pm

It might be nice to have a few fresh faces in here to liven it up, but I don't think that is the be all and end all. I am mildly surprised that some of the old hands came here for a while and then departed.
I sometimes go to the other place to look at Mil and Biz Jets, and note that quite a few regulars there are no longer posting. Is there yet another place (YAP) that everyone is going to?
Suggest we just lay back and it enjoy it.

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#156 Post by 500N » Wed Jan 20, 2016 8:35 pm

OM

I agree.

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#157 Post by izod tester » Thu Jan 21, 2016 5:06 pm

So, if any of us has input or responsibility for other websites, then inserting a link to Ops-Normal would help. As would doing searches for Ops-Normal via Google. Whilst the web sites I run are small and usually only have local visitors I can insert the link into the "useful websites" page. I can also write a script for local fileserver box to generate web searches every so often.

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#158 Post by admin » Fri Jan 22, 2016 10:06 am

om15 wrote:It might be nice to have a few fresh faces in here to liven it up, but I don't think that is the be all and end all.

Tend to agree OM. Would we really want to triple the membership by the end of February? :-o #:-S

I believe that we have done well with word-of-mouth so far. If there is anything that I would really like to happen that would be for many of TOP members who came across in the first few weeks but have never returned to do so.

Any member can click on the "Members" listing at the bottom of the page, and then if they come across a member whom they suspect hasn't been active click on their name to see if it is so. The page gives the date they were last active on the forum, and provides the ability to send an email to said person. So please if there are people you might count as friends, then email and ask them to return. Thanks.

Plus using word-of-mouth to grow the membership by telling friends and acquaintances of our community and asking them to come and join us.

Alison

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#159 Post by ian16th » Sat Jan 23, 2016 11:13 am

Just like to say that the topics under the heading 'Current Aviation' seem to be getting an increase in activity recently. :-BD
Cynicism improves with age

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Re: Changes to Attract New Members

#160 Post by Rwy in Sight » Wed Jan 27, 2016 8:15 am

Just a thought which might work (or not): how about a mail service based on a qwdc@ops-normal.org format?

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