[CentOS-docs] Improving the website and forums

[Dag Wieers]

On Tue, 6 Jan 2009, Alan Bartlett wrote:

> On 05/01/2009, Dag Wieers <dag at centos.org> wrote:
>>
>> On Mon, 5 Jan 2009, Ned Slider wrote:
>>
>> <snip>
>>>
>>> Personally, I'd prefer to see the title of the thread/post followed by
>>> the source returned for a search. So when googling "best Linux" the
>>> searcher may get the following results:
>>>
>>> Is it true that CentOS is the best Linux ever? - CentOS forums
>>> Is it true that CentOS is the best Linux ever? - CentOS Wiki
>>> Is it true that CentOS is the best Linux ever? - CentOS Mailing List
>>>
>>> etc
>>>
>>> Now, if we could just do something about those URGENT - PLEASE HELP!!!
>>> threads for which google returns 474,000 hits (not all of which are on
>>> centos!)
>>
>> While I am mostly for removing as much as possible from the page title
>> except the subject. I think there is a lot of value to still keep the
>> CentOS-4, CentOS-5 identifier.
>
>
> As one who consistently and conscientiously reads *every* forum post, in
> reverse chronological order, every day of the year it is important -- to me
> -- that I have a visible indication of the CentOS version before I even open
> the thread (to read the post(s)).
>
> My reason for stating this point? So that a decision is not made to change
> the working (& structure) of the fora just to increase the CentOS page
> rankings, returned by a search engine, without giving serious consideration
> to the users of the fora.

I don't know why everyone seems to think we are going to change *ANYTHING* 
to the way the forums work. The only thing I asked to consider is changing 
the page title. Something a forum user would not even notice because that 
is *NOT* what they see anywhere, unless in your tab. And now all your tabs 
look like: "www.centos.org -" (if you can see that many characters)

I don't see any compelling reason to keep it that way...

And I am not asking for this to improve the page ranking. I am asking for 
this because otherwise everybody using Google to find solutions is blind 
for what a certain topic is until he opens the page. And that is plain 
silly and will not attract a lot of users, let alone help them find what 
he needs.

I thought my examples were pretty obvious, but I guess the whole thread 
scared people into forgetting the examples ? Maybe ?

Can you please try to google for "CentOS Wireless site:www.centos.org" and 
tell me which link you prefer without clicking through. It is simply 
impossible since all the titles contain no valuable information to 
differentiate.

Search Results

    1. www.centos.org - Forums - CentOS 4 - Hardware Support - Intel ...
    2. www.centos.org - Forums - CentOS 5 - Networking Support - CentOS 5
    3. www.centos.org - Forums - CentOS 5 - Hardware Support - Hawking ...
    4. www.centos.org - Forums - CentOS 4 - Hardware Support - Intel ...
    5. www.centos.org - Forums - CentOS 4 - Networking Support - intel ...
    6. www.centos.org - Forums - CentOS 5 - General Support - Getting ...

How very *NOT* useful.

-- 
--   dag wieers,  dag at centos.org,  http://dag.wieers.com/   --
[Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors]