robots.txt question and search optimization...

[Xtreme2damax]

I am having a bit of trouble getting my website noticed, not to mention severely lacking new active members that are posting. I get anywheres between 3-4 visitors at a time, however one day on May 17th I got a flood of about 102 visitors which is abnormal considering my usual amount of guests on is 3 - 4 and sometimes 6 - 8.

Some search terms/phrases turn my website up on the first page, however I am noticing a lack of bots indexing my website.

I get googlebot and yahoo search on, however MSNbot visits once in a blue moon, and no other searchbots are indexing my website.

I've had my website up for about a half a year now and only have 30 unique members, only a few which are somewhat active which is my staff.

I've done whatever I could think of to optimize my website for search engines such as SEO url's, adding content, meta tags/meta tag mod, submitting my website to search engines manually.

I have also place a link/image link in my sig at websites that allow it, which is the logo of my forum and links to my website.

My domain name is fairly short and easy to remember, website loads fast. I have also made various improvements to the website to make it more user friendly and am as quick as possible about fixing problems.

My website is virtually spam free as well.

I however garner very few visitors a day compared to other websites, my member base and active member base are quite pathetic.

I'm trying to get things going and get new staff aboard, new members and increasing content but no one seems interested.

It also seems my webpage/forum isn't being cached by the web archive and turns up zilch results when typing in my domain.

Mcafee Site Advisor hasn't even acknowledged my website as being there, thus my website is still awaiting approval/review.

Suggestions are welcome, link is in my sig in case anyone is interested or wants to provide suggestions, help or feedback.

[labrocca]

Want my opinion?

1. Get rid of half your forums..they are empty and redundant. You can always create subforums and more categories as you grow.
2. Change your on off icons...I think they suck.
3. Add Meta Tags (releasing a new plugin tonight)
4. Start link building.
5. Add keyword rich forum descriptions.
6. Remove the random quote in header..it's pointless.
7. This is obnoxious looking on your portal page



http://www.xtemu.com/robots.txt

Compare it to mine:
http://www.mybbcentral.com/robots.txt

[Xtreme2damax]

labrocca Wrote:Want my opinion?

1. Get rid of half your forums..they are empty and redundant. You can always create subforums and more categories as you grow.
2. Change your on off icons...I think they suck.
3. Add Meta Tags (releasing a new plugin tonight)
4. Start link building.
5. Add keyword rich forum descriptions.
6. Remove the random quote in header..it's pointless.
7. This is obnoxious looking on your portal page


http://www.xtemu.com/robots.txt

Compare it to mine:
http://www.mybbcentral.com/robots.txt

Well that reply seems harsher than I originally thought I would receive, but I agree. Number 7 is my avatar, I'm not skilled in image editing so I rely on pre-made avatars otherwise I would make a decent one from scratch. I'll change it however, because it is kind of starting to bother me.

When you refer to the on off icons, do you mean the offline/online status in the postbit? What do you suggest changing them to?

I'm in the process of deleting sections from the index and moving them into a subsection, and plan on cleaning everything up.

What is link building? I apologize for being a bit oblivious, but I'm not really familiar with web terms and am learning as I go along.

I'll add better forum descriptions when I get a chance, probably tomorrow since I'll be going to bed as it's late at night/early morning here. I'll also deactivate that quote plugin, as it's not really adding much.

Thanks for the suggestions, I hope I wasn't annoying by posting this thread.

[labrocca]

Don't mean to be harsh but I see no sense in mincing words.

You can use that avatar but just slice a single image from it and stop the animation. It's killing me just being on this site.

Link Building is basically working to create in-bound links to your site. Sounds like you started it some already with forum signatures. However you also want text links. Use anchors that are relevent to your site. Like this:

Xtemu Game Emulators

You can use tools like Wordtracker or Google's Keyword Tool to look for highly searched keywords you want to target. Also use those words for creating your sites content, meta tags, and such.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/keyw...ve_dubious

[Xtreme2damax]

labrocca Wrote:Don't mean to be harsh but I see no sense in mincing words.

You can use that avatar but just slice a single image from it and stop the animation. It's killing me just being on this site.

Link Building is basically working to create in-bound links to your site. Sounds like you started it some already with forum signatures. However you also want text links. Use anchors that are relevent to your site. Like this:

Xtemu Game Emulators

You can use tools like Wordtracker or Google's Keyword Tool to look for highly searched keywords you want to target. Also use those words for creating your sites content, meta tags, and such.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/keyw...ve_dubious

You can remove that pic/avatar now posted above, I have changed my avatar to something more pleasant on the eyes.

All of the issues you mentioned have been fixed, all is left is for me to tidy up my sections, and more link building.

[labrocca]

It's just you and I in this topic. There isn't a need to "quote" everything I say.

[Xtreme2damax]

Sorry it's just a habit, I'll try not to quote so much.

:Eek: It appears Google adwords/keywords charges money for this, I can't afford any other expenses besides my hosting bill.