<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><BR><DIV><DIV>On 13 Sep 2007, at 01:03, Jonathan Graham Harston wrote:</DIV><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><A href="http://mdfs.net/Docs/Comp/BBC/Disk">http://mdfs.net/Docs/Comp/BBC/Disk</A></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">What I am doing with my website that results in people not finding</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">this information? What search terms did you use? What search</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">engine did you use?</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE><BR></DIV><DIV>Jumping in here - I don't know why your site performs so poorly in search results, as it's full of useful information, but seldom ranks highly on Google.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Using the following search terms:</DIV><DIV>3.5 bbc floppy</DIV><DIV>3.5 bbc disk</DIV><DIV>3.5 bbc drive</DIV><DIV>connect 3.5" bbc drive</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>And your page isn't in the first 5 pages of Google results - most people tend to give up after 5 pages and try a new search term. Sprow's HowTo page, which does have information on how to connect up a 3.5" drive, tends to appear fairly high up on the first pages of results, at least for the last two search terms.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I think that the problem is:</DIV><DIV>a) not enough sites linking in to yours - therefore search engines don't treat it as authoritative</DIV><DIV>b) the way the text is written on the page doesn't give enough keyword density to flag these common search terms in the engines</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Unless I specifically add 'mdfs' to any search terms it's very hard to find any of your relevant pages in the engine indexes. You can check the keyword density here: <A href="http://oyoy.eu/page/keywords/?url=http%3a%2f%2fmdfs.net%2fDocs%2fComp%2fBBC%2fDisk">http://oyoy.eu/page/keywords/?url=http%3a%2f%2fmdfs.net%2fDocs%2fComp%2fBBC%2fDisk</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>(that site has many very useful tools to work out how your site is viewed by search engines, and thus how to improve search ranking)</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>If you go to Google and do a "link: <A href="http://mdfs.net">http://mdfs.net</A>" it will tell you which sites have incoming links - there aren't very many, and none of them link in to your above listed page. This all means that Google assigns your page a page rank of 0 - it's not rating as being authoritative or relevant in the index. </DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Maybe the list needs a monthly "FAQs and Read These Sites First" sort of posting to remind people of the good resources that are out there.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Cheers,</DIV><DIV>TOM</DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>--</DIV><DIV>"Tell them we are not Gods, but Sysadmins, which is the next best thing."</DIV><DIV>"What is the use of living, if it be not to strive for noble causes and to make this muddled world a better place for those who will live in it after we are gone?" Sir Winston Churchill</DIV><DIV><A href="http://www.linkedin.com/in/tomkranz">http://www.linkedin.com/in/tomkranz</A></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>