How to Win at Google

[toughpigs]

We already have a Google Webmasters account that includes Marvel Database... What kind of information are you guys looking for? Maybe I can get it for you...

[Jamie]

Anything and everything... we LOVE stats here...

[Roygbiv666]

How's our traffic now? Are we getting hits on comic searches as well (ex "Batman #686", "Amazing Spider-Man #999", whatever)?

[m1shawhan]

LOL!! I was going to ask someone this today and meant to look for this forum link. Thank you for asking how it is going.


So... anyone know? Good? Bad? Anyone? Bueller?

[Jamie]

Traffic is definitely up in the last few weeks...
As for keywords for specific comics, the following are the largest (Marvel) traffic drivers for this past month, in order:

new mutants #3 70th anniversary
ultimate comics spiderman 5
fantastic four annual 23
what if? vol 4 #2
thor volume 3
x-factor #69 writer
uncanny x-men annual #11
comic "what if? vol 9"
new x-men vol 1 issue 154
tales of suspense 39
wolverine origins # 45
invaders 33 review
journey into mystery 85
amazing spider-man vol. 2 29
excalibur vol. 1 #44

Perhaps looking at our pages for these will give us clues on how/why they are the top Google getters?

[m1shawhan]

Can we get an update on this? I was thinking an update for characters as well as comics (a top ten list, if you will). Also, for the characters that we changed the name of the page - ex) Spider-Man (Peter Parker) -- has this change really shown an overall increase in the hits? If so, would this be worth doing this for the others in the "top ten" for characters?

Also - I have noticed increased traffic on the main page when it is updated. Not only the same day, but also almost the same moment it has been updated. Does this tie into anything? I am wondering if the traffic is not only due to the users who randomly read the page but might it be driven by the edit of the page being picked up by Google and moved higher on the Google list? Does that make sense? Just curious...

[Jamie]

Can we get an update on this? I was thinking an update for characters as well as comics (a top ten list, if you will). Also, for the characters that we changed the name of the page - ex) Spider-Man (Peter Parker) -- has this change really shown an overall increase in the hits? If so, would this be worth doing this for the others in the "top ten" for characters?

Also - I have noticed increased traffic on the main page when it is updated. Not only the same day, but also almost the same moment it has been updated. Does this tie into anything? I am wondering if the traffic is not only due to the users who randomly read the page but might it be driven by the edit of the page being picked up by Google and moved higher on the Google list? Does that make sense? Just curious...

I will grab stats for any page(s) you want... to narrow it down, can I get a specific title(s) and date range?

i.e. Spider-Man (Peter Parker) Sept 1st - 30th 2009 vs January 1st - 31st 2010.

Regarding the updated main page, it definitely updates in Google indexes faster than other pages, but I doubt it is immediate.
Likely these people are visiting the site anyway, but when the they see the updated content they likely stop and stare, instead of just 'passing by' on their way somewhere else.

This leads me to ask...

Can we devise a way/mechanism/method of updating the home page content daily or weekly without ACTUALLY having to do it manually?
Like, most weeks, we could have an automagic-generated Featured Article, but then we could do a manual Featured Article whenever something special happens, like a Movie or a new Story Arc or something...


Thoughts?

[m1shawhan]

We'd probably be best doing just that... the revolving new information (maybe like a "just added" image). It would probably use DPL, but it'd work. Is that what you are thinking?

[Jamie]

Exactly...

A DPL that picks something new each day or whatever, but also has a 'manual override' switch that we can stick in something about the new Iron Man 2, for instance.

[GrnMarvl14]

Was fooling around with a random quote generator I found on one of the FF Wikia sites. Never could get it to work right, but it basically worked by drawing from a set list of options. Here and here if you guys think it might be helpful. And, if not...well...ignore me.

[Roygbiv666]

Exactly...

A DPL that picks something new each day or whatever, but also has a 'manual override' switch that we can stick in something about the new Iron Man 2, for instance.

Isn't' part of the idea of the Main Page to avoid code?

[Jamie]

Isn't' part of the idea of the Main Page to avoid code?

It was my impression that most of the page is supposed to be for Google PageRank lovin', but the Featured Article part is our own to play with.
Am I wrong here?

[Jamie]

Was fooling around with a random quote generator I found on one of the FF Wikia sites. Never could get it to work right, but it basically worked by drawing from a set list of options. Here and here if you guys think it might be helpful. And, if not...well...ignore me.

Yeah, this might be along the right lines.
We'd have to make up a few 'options' for it to choose from and can add to the library as time goes on, but it would select from those options rather than pulling randomly from ALL of the 60,000 possible pages we have.

[Peteparker]

DPL would do it for us, for sure, but as I remember it, DPL on the Main Page is a no-no because it eats server like crazy.

Apparently there is a correlation between how often a page is viewed and DPL's affect on the server. With a well-placed DPL call on the main page, I'd bet we could crash the server.

There's some trick to it though, if the DPL is on another page, and that page was reflected on the main page, it wouldn't be a big deal, but both the main page wouldn't automatically update when the other page did, (I think). I think there are bot programs that will automatically update a page every day, (Jamie, didn't you use one that automatically did the double redirects?), but I don't know how those work. (I could possibly have one and not know it).

The random generator option is nice too, but we have to pre-populate the options, and the result isn't based on the day, but changes on every page load.

[GrnMarvl14]

So, basically, we're trying to do an automated version of the Featured Article we used to do?