Spiders

[beast]

  I don't know that much about spiders on your forum. Is there just certain ones that you want or?

   

[Skhilled]

Well, there are good and bad spiders both are also called bots. Here's the short version...

Good spiders: Yahoo, Google, Badiu, Bing, etc...the recognized search engines, mostly. These are the ones you want because they will rank you in their search engines. This mean when someone does a search for you they may find you using Google, Yahoo, etc. If you see one you do not recognize then use a search engine to look it up.

Bad spiders:  Those who search for content to exploit. Exploiting can be to steal information to use on their sites or to steal personal info like email addresses, passwords, etc. and more. Even the big websites do this like Food Network to find new recipes and use them as their own.

There are ways to tell the spiders what to do...if they are good. The bad ones will not listen to what you ask of them. SMF has settings that will allow you to let them do certain things and treat them as any other membergroup. You can also use code in a .htaccess file to tell them what to do. There is a lot more to it that this. You can even build your own spider/bot to search the net for specific information you want.

[beast]

   Is there any way you could help me with this? I would like to try and bring my forum back to life. I know over the years I have ask you for help and you have put your stuff off just to help me. If you don't have time right now. I understand and will always be thankful for what help you have gave me. Thank You   


   

[Skhilled]

Well, you need to be more specific about what you want. I believe you want to know more about SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and how to get more visitors to your site.

If so, it does require a bit of work. You'll need to learn more about how search engines work and how to submit your website to the search engines. Each search engine does it a bit differently. You'll need to do searches on their sites or read their documentation to find out how each one works. Here's some info on it:

https://ahrefs.com/blog/submit-website-to-search-engines/


To add to this, you'll want to have a niche. For instance, this site is about SMF support. Ron's site is about helping seniors and giving them a place to gather. You'll need to figure out what your niche is. I'd suggest it should be based on something you know. You like to fish, you are into Jehovah's Witnesses, etc. Figure out what you wish to focus on and then try to attract those type of people. This is something I've told you before when you first started.


It helps to have a main focus then you can add other things into it. But, you must know about the niche of your site because those that come there will expect it.

[beast]

   I am working now on all that you have told me. I will let you know how it turns out. And Thank You again


   

[Skhilled]

No problem.