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Hi all,
Looking at goolge results, it seems that this wiki is not well optimized for Search Engine. I'm not an expert at SEO but I feel we could do some significiant enhancements. So there is many ways to do that and the first thing is to get some links that point on this wiki (I've already added some in wikipedia english/french). Concerning that point I feel we are doing an "auto-goal" by generating a lot of links for DarthHaterDB without any returns. Do you think we could have a "Win-Win" postion with them? (asking them to add some links to this wiki)
Then I've done some research on google ("Mediawiki SEO") and found nothing that much interesting except maybe about the sitemap, which google seems to appreciate: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:GenerateSitemap.php. Is this in place for this wiki?(Question for Curse admins)
If you look at google results looking for some codex/mission you'll get a lots of torhead/DarthHaterDB results but nothing about this wiki. More results means more users, means more contributors, etc...
- Improving our position on Google may not be as important as it used to be. This month they implemented new protocols that base results on a user's past searches and internet activity. What this means is that if someone uses/searches this resource frequently, and not any others, this project will show up toward the top of the list. For example, when I run a search this project is always the #1 return. Alternatively, if someone uses other resources a random search is unlikely to return our project at the top; if someone uses the Wikia project, their Google searches will result in pages from that wiki, not this one. There's no way for us to change how this functions.
- We can still attempt to increase our position for searches by users that don't have a Google account and don't have cookies on their machine. We've attempted to get DarthHaterDB to link back to us, but it's not going to happen; we're going to have to do the work by generating links on other sites ourselves. As I add Codex articles obtained through lore objects to this project, for example, I try to add comments to the DB that point here (see Twi'lek). We simply need to make our project more useful to the community and make sure others know we are here. If we can accomplish this then our users will do all the work for us.
- As a quick aside, your link on Wikipedia was reverted by the equivalent of a project admin. I've asked that user for a reason for this deletion. -- Heaven's Agent 14:37, 28 March 2012 (UTC)
- User search history has been part of google results for a long time, I just think it hasn't been very publicly acknowledged. They have purposefully kept a lot of their "protocols" hidden to avoid those who would use nefarious means to bypass/abuse them. Linkages are important, which is why I suggest that any of you that are active on community forums (any forum related to gaming, DH, Official SWTOR, Curse.com, etc.) add links to the wiki into your forum signatures (where allowed). It is not legally possible for DarthHater to add reciprocal links from the database to the wiki due to their contract, so don't even bother going there. We had a system in place to add those links that had to be scrapped. I will say again that us providing them with those links is a courtesy only. Watch for news articles that pertain to things that can be found on the wiki and comment on them, adding links back to relevant pages, etc.
- MediaWiki itself does not provide many SEO related tools (believe me, this is something I have researched for our entire network). One tool we do have available is the use of meta descriptions. While these don't necessarily directly impact SEO, a good description can make a search return more appealing to the searcher. The extension used for these was "broken" in MW 1.17, but seems to be functioning again in 1.18, so, you should feel free to add meta descriptions to important pages. You can see how to do that by looking at the code on the main page (very bottom line). It's pretty simple, just enclose the description in <metadesc> </metadesc> tags. -- Wynthyst File:User Wynthyst sig icon.png talk 12:57, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- Thanks both of you for your answers. I'll give a try with the <metadesc> </metadesc> tags. I also agree with Heaven's Agent that the traffic will depends on our ability to provide pertinent content there is much to do in this context (NPCs, Missions, Mobs, Zone, Areas). Anyway I'm glad to see that this subject has some consideration from you. Zophar 13:07, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- I also have found out that we do generate sitemaps on a regular basis. Another thing to look at is ways to increase the internal interlinking of pages. This can be done by creating lists, organized in multiple ways. -- Wynthyst File:User Wynthyst sig icon.png talk 14:08, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- In addition to adding links in relevant news articles, we can make a point to watch the help sections of game forums, both official and otherwise. We provide answers to the community and include links to the project that illustrate the information. Granted this will be easier as we add more information to the project, but it is something to keep in mind. -- Heaven's Agent 15:53, 29 March 2012 (UTC)
- I got a response to the Wikipedia link being removed. Wikipedia has standards determining what external links can be included in an article. We fail to meet one of these standards, specifically a requirement that the project have a substantial body of regular contributors. We have a solid core, and that group is increasing in size, but apparently is is not enough. I've asked what an appropriate number of regular contributors would be.
- Interestingly, the policy also prohibits links to social sites; I've also asked why links to the Wikia projects were not removed, as the Wikia network certainly qualifies as a social network by Wikipedia's own article on the term. -- Heaven's Agent 15:24, 1 April 2012 (UTC)