Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

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Circle5
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Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by Circle5 »

What's the point of building a forum if nobody can find it ? What's the point of trying to spread the dhamma, build an online shanga, etc. - if nobody can find it ?

If you google "buddhist forum" - dhammawheel doesn't even get on first page. The sister forum is nr 3 on first page, but dhammawheel is nowhere to be found. There are aprox 1000 searches per month for the terms "buddhist forum" and "buddhism forum" combined. These people are searching for dhammawheel, but can't find it.

I remember when I got to dhammawheel, I did so because I searched "buddhist forum" and DhammaWheel was nr 1 result. Today, DhammaWheel is still nr 1 biggest buddhist forum on the internet but because of bad SEO, it disappeared from google.

This is the reason why dhammawheel is not growing, a problem raised in another topic in this suggestion section. This SEO problem should get fixed. There are countless people being lost to mahayana due to dhammawheel having bad SEO.
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SDC
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by SDC »

Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I googled "Theravada Buddhist Forum" and it was second, but we sure would want to be right there on page one for "Buddhist Forum" searches. I am sure the admins will contact the tech people and look into this. Thanks again for pointing it out.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
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Circle5
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by Circle5 »

There are just 20 monthly searches for "theravada forum". There are 1000 for "buddhist forum" and "buddhism forum". This is a big problem. The dhamma can not spread if it does not appear on google. People simply can not find this forum. It's a very difficult place to find.

This place needs to get nr 1 in search results for "buddhist forum". And it needs that fast.
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SDC
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by SDC »

Circle5 wrote: Sat Jun 02, 2018 1:47 am There are just 20 monthly searches for "theravada forum". There are 1000 for "buddhist forum" and "buddhism forum". This is a big problem. The dhamma can not spread if it does not appear on google. People simply can not find this forum. It's a very difficult place to find.
Yes, I just said we want to be on page one for "Buddhist forum" searches. I'm agreeing with you. We are going to correct it.
“Life is swept along, short is the life span; no shelters exist for one who has reached old age. Seeing clearly this danger in death, a seeker of peace should drop the world’s bait.” SN 1.3
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Kim OHara
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by Kim OHara »

I use DuckDuckGo for searches and got the same (lack of) results for "buddhist forum" but the site was high on the list for "theravada buddhist forum".
"online buddhist forum" got me a few blasts from the past - references to e-sangha and Ed Ng's "Cultural Studies and Matters of Faith: The Case of DhammaWheel.com" - https://www.academia.edu/476440/Cultura ... aWheel.com - but not the forum itself.

So yes, there is a problem, and it's not just Google.

:coffee:
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SarathW
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by SarathW »

I think every person want to be number one.
The only way to do this is to pay Google!
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
SarathW
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by SarathW »

I typed "Buddhist forums" and I got the following results.
Free Sangha
Buddhism without boundaries
Dhamma Wheel
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
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mikenz66
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by mikenz66 »

It's also a matter of having the right keywords, and how many external links there are to the the site (and from where ), what traffic it gets, and so on.
I'm a little puzzled as we say:
Dhamma Wheel
A Buddhist discussion forum on the Dhamma of the Theravāda
So I'm not sure what is going on.

One thing I notice is that when I look up dhammawheel.com and dharmawheel.net I come up with the same IP address:
52.52.250.185

That seems kind of odd, and I wonder if it messes up our statistics in some way. However, I'm not an expert on this issue...

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retrofuturist
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by retrofuturist »

Greetings,
mikenz66 wrote: Sat Jun 02, 2018 2:46 am However, I'm not an expert on this issue...
Me neither... definitely one for David and the webmaster.

Metta,
Paul. :)
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pilgrim
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by pilgrim »

Could the search algorithm vary for different countries? My google for Buddhist forum returned Dharma Wheel as no 5 and Dhamma Wheel as no 7.
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mikenz66
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by mikenz66 »

pilgrim wrote: Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:02 am Could the search algorithm vary for different countries? My google for Buddhist forum returned Dharma Wheel as no 5 and Dhamma Wheel as no 7.
Yes, it depends on your location, and can also depend on your interests, especially if you use a lot of google services...

Best to test with a browser where you're not logged into anything, and the configuration files have just been wiped... I normally use Chrome, but have a script to delete the Firefox setup, so I can use a completely clean browser.

I see that in the Google search results we have:
Dhamma Wheel - Index page
https://www.dhammawheel.com/
A forum for beginners and members of other Buddhist traditions to ask questions about Theravāda (The Way of the Elders). Responses require moderator ...
That's the text for the Discovering Theravada section. No idea why it's picking that up first. I recall there is some way of encoding meta-info for search engines but it's been a long time since I looked at that sort of detail.

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Kim OHara
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by Kim OHara »

mikenz66 wrote: Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:14 am
pilgrim wrote: Sat Jun 02, 2018 3:02 am Could the search algorithm vary for different countries? My google for Buddhist forum returned Dharma Wheel as no 5 and Dhamma Wheel as no 7.
Yes, it depends on your location, and can also depend on your interests, especially if you use a lot of google services...

Best to test with a browser where you're not logged into anything, and the configuration files have just been wiped... I normally use Chrome, but have a script to delete the Firefox setup, so I can use a completely clean browser.
Google search results depend a lot on your search history and perhaps your browsing history. In the name of "providing a better service", Google tracks you and saves that kind of information. It will certainly help Google find you the kinds of results you want, but it has two down-sides - the echo-chamber effect, whereby all the results tend towards similar biases, and :spy: what else Google might do with your data.
That's why I switched to DuckDuckGo - https://duckduckgo.tumblr.com or https://duckduckgo.com

:coffee:
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SarathW
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by SarathW »

That's why I switched to DuckDuckGo
Buddhist Dhamma discussions = Zero results
Buddhist Dhamma forums = Dhamma Wheel came first.
I think we have to support the Duck.
:jumping:
“As the lamp consumes oil, the path realises Nibbana”
BKh
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by BKh »

SarathW wrote: Sat Jun 02, 2018 2:26 am I think every person want to be number one.
The only way to do this is to pay Google!
Number one is correct. Number two is not. Number two can depend a lot on what the competition looks like. Considering there are surely less than ten Buddhist forums on the internet, getting on the top page for "Buddhist Forum" should not be hard. Then it depends how well your code is structured for google to understand it.

I notice that the page titles only include "Dhamma Wheel." That's really where you need to have your keywords. Something short but packed, like "Dhamma Wheel Theravada Buddhist Discussion Forum". Having that added to the end of all the page titles might help.

What is probably more important is where we turn up in searches people are doing for Buddhist topics. When I do a search for "how to read suttas", Dhamma Wheel does come up on the first page, but very last. This is good, but considering how many times this topic is discussed it feels like DW should be higher.

Also, I don't think the og tags are optimized. For example, when you share the homepage link on Facebook, this is the data that is shared:
The attachment screenshot.38.jpg is no longer available
That's a big problem. Not because of sharing on Facebook, but because the same data is used by google. It's not the only thing Google uses, but it is important.

This is the tag info for the General Theravada forum...
screenshot.38.jpg
screenshot.38.jpg (134.6 KiB) Viewed 4869 times
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ieee23
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Re: Dhammawheel is not growing - because it has zero SEO

Post by ieee23 »

SarathW wrote: Sat Jun 02, 2018 2:26 am I think every person want to be number one.
The only way to do this is to pay Google!
DhaRMawheel was on the first page for a Google search on "Buddhist Forum".

Do they pay Google?
Whatever a bhikkhu frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of his mind. - MN 19
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