I always used to use Google to get to SFN, now even if i do a search for scienceforums.net nothing relevant comes up. The same goes for Yahoo.

 

Why has SFN been bumped of these search engines and how does anyone else find SFN?

bookmarks! or the ultimate in SFN geekdom, your homepage. no idea how i found his place and no idea why i looked and no idea why i stayed. but i'm here now so party on.

SFN has been my homepage for over a year now.

 

But, I too have noticed this unfortunate trend. I found SFN through google too.

SFN has been my homepage for over a year now.

 

But' date=' I too have noticed this unfortunate trend. I found SFN through google too.[/quote']

 

That's good, but if SFN isn't easy to find we might start to miss out on interesting new members.

 

Any ideas how people are finding the forum?

You can still snag links to threads when you Google specific information, but it would be better to have a higher ranking for searching "science forum".

It's bad it's droped

 

I found it via Dave and IRC....

You can still snag links to threads when you Google specific information, but it would be better to have a higher ranking for searching "science forum".

 

Do you have any idea why the ranking has so suddenly dropped? It's almost like a deliberate decisions been made somewhere.

I'm quite concerned by this. It was first brought to my attention about a month ago. SFN just isn't on the list anywhere; doing a search for science forums on google used to bring up SFN at the very top of the list. Now, we're not even on page 10!

 

I have a feeling that the robots may be seeing the robots.txt file and running away. I'll look into it.

It's possible, however unlikely, that a competitor has succesfully petitioned google and yahoo to de-index the site. I can't imagine how they would make a convincing argument though.

I would also imagine that they would at least e-mail us to let us know that. I don't know. For the time being I've removed the robots.txt file, so lets see what happens over the next few days.

i found SFN on a google search for "rods of god"

http://beta.search.live.com/results.aspx?q=science+forums&FORM=LVSP&x=0&y=0

 

Still #1 for ms live!

I saw that. It's wierd - Google's pagerank of the home page is 6/10, which really isn't bad. But it's just not anywhere on the listings. At all.

I saw that. It's wierd - Google's pagerank of the home page is 6/10, which really isn't bad. But it's just not anywhere[/i'] on the listings. At all.

 

Truly, SFN is the ghost in the machine.

If I type in the following words: science forums debate

 

Google - SFN listed around number 35

 

Yahoo - SFN listed first.

 

Seems like google gives no weight to titles

I will try and find out precisely what is going on and get back to you all.

it looks as if it might have dropped off towards the end of june, if thats any help

 

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?&range=6m&size=large&compare_sites=&y=r&url=www.scienceforums.net

 

hmm...

Perhaps google correctly realizes that the amount of new scientific content has tremendously dropped within the last months?

Perhaps google correctly realizes that the amount of new scientific content has tremendously dropped within the last months?

 

do you mean on SFN or in research in general.

On SFN. Otherwise, all pages must drop in rank which isn´t possible. I was not completely serious, though. I doubt that the google pageranking is that good that it sees the keyword "science" and correctly tracks the amount of scientific content.

The decreasing scientific traffic also is just my impression but I´ve also heard others saying so.

 

EDIT: But perhaps the number of new posts has decreased overall? I think someone had an eye on the postcount, let´s see if I can find some information ...

 

EDIT2: I found an old post by Martin where he counted the posts from mid-march to beginning of april. He counted an average of 292 posts per day over a period of 25 days. Luckily, he also gave the total number of posts on April, 4th. From April 4th to today, we had an average of 237 posts per day. Since my feeling of declining postnumbers is newer than April, I suppose that we are currently below that 237.

Perhaps google correctly realizes that the amount of new scientific content has tremendously dropped within the last months?

 

In order to get some background to this topic, I googled phrases such as 'google scientific content/ranking' The results seem to reinforce this view or to indicate a change in parameters for the ranking algorithm away from discussion and 'homework help' towards new work and citations.

If I remember correctly (which I do) SFN was at one point a Sponser website. It appeared alongside the hits not as a hit itself. As such when it was no longer a sponser it did not appear anymore in the hit period. (Maybe an oversight by Google, more likely a way to keep sponsers)

 

EDIT: Too much assuming.

I'm sorry to resurrect such an old thread, but I'd just like to tell you all that the problem was resolved and we're now back on the top of the results for "science forums"

I'm sorry to resurrect such an old thread, but I'd just like to tell you all that the problem was resolved and we're now back on the top of the results for "science forums"

 

So what was the issue? Was it really that google adopts very quickly to changes (at least I have the feeling that the number of posts has increased within the last week, I just cannot tell what is cause and what if effect) or some incorrect setting/similar (what exactly)?

maybe google had the sfn homepage indexed but not the rest of the forum directly? so when the sfn homepage was removed the ranking went with it.