Google/Bing etc.

[Argammon]

Hello pipsqueaks!

I just realized our competitions appear quite low in the search results on google and bing. At least that is the case for me and is a bit unfortunate if we want to be found by pipsqueaks interested in the game.

For example, when I search for "stunts racing game" I do not find stunts.hu on the first 5 pages. Searching for "stunts broderbund" shows the wiki on the bottom of the first page. So it very much depends on what exactly people search for.

Is anybody aware of a trick to manipulate google so that the stunts portal shows up higher in the list of search results? 

[Overdrijf]

Is anybody aware of a trick to manipulate google so that the stunts portal shows up higher in the list of search results? 

I know it's an entire industry, Search Engine Optimization. SEO is often sold in a package with a new website. What I don't know is how to do it, but I presume it's a bit like running a very light DDOS attack, have a program running across a bunch of servers with accepted tracking cookies search for the terms you want to be found with and then either click the right result or if it doesn't show browse to the page you want found right after.

There's probably no point in trying to do it by hand, at best you will teach google to change your personal search results, not those of others.

[Daniel3D]

There is an algorithm that you can manipulate with key words. SEO, search engine optimization. You don't need special tools, just knowledge of it.

Search engine optimization documentation

I know that it exists, never done anything with it..
But it's probably a good idea to investigate. If I just search for "stunts game " you get the game but nothing of stunts.hu the first pages.

[dreadnaut]

Beyond the fundamental "build a decent™ website", everything you do for SEO will change the nature of your website, usually for the worse. Pointers from search engines are good, but avoid everything else.

There are two issues with ZakStunts that affect search results negatively:

• its content: there is not a lot of text, mostly tables of numbers; as a counterexample the newbie guide appears quite high
  
• its layout: search engines nowadays give weight to pages that work well on small screens, and our many tables don't exactly fit

The only side that works OK is performance   In comparison, the wiki and forum fare better

It's also not a great moment to check, close to the http -> https switch. Google sort-of understands redirect, but the website was fully indexed under HTTP, while now I'm still getting warning "Oh, where did this page go? By the way, I found this new one!" on the Search Console, as Google rediscovers bits and pieces.

[Cas]

What I know is that while classic search engines offered a way for you to submit your page, new huge engines actually crawl the web to build their own search structure. This means that if there's one thing we can do that definitely help is exchange links with other websites, that is, offer other related website to refer to them in ours and they do the same with us in return.

It's not just visitors that will see the link, but the crawling system itself will "digest" it into its web. The best is to publish not just the address line, but the name of the site, that is, the words that a person would normally use to search for it.

Another thing that can be done, but doesn't help much, is to include tags in the HTML pages of our sites. I've done that in R4K, but it really depends on what the search engine wants to do.

A curious thing, there's also http://wiby.org. This little web engine does allow to submit a page and it's meant for people to find independent websites. I have submitted R4K and ZakStunts there long ago and I see they're still there.

[Daniel3D]

Maybe referring to ZakStunts, r4k the Wiki and other relevant pages in video descriptions will help.

[Cas]

Oh, yes... I think that could indeed help. Google will crawl over its own websites first of all, I suppose