Good someone noticed!
I am doing an experiment with Google Ads. While I don't feel that Google ads will generate any real revenue for the forum, I do think that they will improve our results in search engines.
Over the last couple of weeks we've installed some things on the forum that greatly improve the ranking in serach engines. One robot went through the forum and renamed all the threads with hard linked URLs so web crawlers wouldn't skip over the forum when indexing information. And, that has helped greatly - for example, our namesake, "GT40", we at least make it in the first few results although not the top site. Search for "Lola Spider" under Google and we pop up 2nd with a build thread. A few weeks ago we didn't even show up at all.
The Google Ads can have a positive affect on search engine ranking too, although it is more indirect. I thought I'd try it out in low profile areas of the pages such as the bottom sections.
I will also be doing some graphic text linking with our base advertisers, enlarging their banners, and using some tags so that their banner ads will contribute to our search engine ranking as well.
All of this stuff is somewhat of a ever changing art form. My own company BMG LABTECH has hired people to help improve our ranking in search engines and some of what I'm doing here is an offshoot of that work. Websites, particularily forums, exist solely because of their members and if we attract more GT40 nuts it is a good thing for all!
Best,
Ron
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