That is a great way to run a forum isn't it. I posted a legitimate question into the Google forum questioning why only 2 of my approximately 15 page web site were crawled. (by Google) Someone did reply with a decent answer. After reviewing his solution I was about to thank him and now the post is gone?! Did the administrator even read my post? I think he/she would have discovered that it was in the right place and it was a legitimate question. Frankly I am insulted and I will be removing this web site from my bookmarks. There are quite a few invaluable resources on the Internet... this isn't one of them. Just some FYI.
If it was about your site (or one site in particular) it should have been posted in the website review section of the forum.
I think this section would be better since it's related to search engines. http://forums.digitalpoint.com/forumdisplay.php?f=12
I removed it because it wasn't in line with the very few and simple rules we have. On your second post you come asking about YOUR site and why YOUR site wasn't indexed well. It was a REVIEW, nothing to do with the search engine in question. The search engine wasn;t broken or anything so it was YOU asking about YOUR website. For which you need more posts... And for these questions we have a suggestions & feedback forum... As far as this comment: Whatever.
If a post was deleted and the guy wasn't spamming, maybe it would have been more tactful letting him know why it was removed so that he wouldn't do the same thing again or get ticked off and leave.
Yeah but... We'd be PMing and arguing at least 300 times a week whilst the answer is already in the FAQ. Besides that, a forum is a community. Not reading the short FAQ, not starting an intro thread first and then posting a 'help me' type question as a first post... That's just not the right spirit is it. Anyway, the rule is simple - contribute first, then get the right to be helped out.
IMHO, I think, as a courtesy, a member should be advised when a thread or post is deleted. I do that as a mod. There just isn't that many deletes. Just seems like it would be more community spirited. There are exceptions of course, e.g. profanity, obscenity, viscious attacks, etc. where actions by a mod would be obvious.
I haven't read the post in question and i realize one should read the FAQ's before posting but one thing confused me regarding the topic starters question is his innitial post, since his question was why certain pages where not indexed by Google. Reason for deleting the post was given with this reply: Doesn't website review apply to the look and feel of a site regarding user friendlyness, in the sense of ''what do you think of my site? Do you like the looks of my site?''... So would a search engine indexing related question not be out of place in Website review? and would it not be more suitable for the section ''Search engine optimization'' since the amount of pages indexed is a result of SEO efforts as well? I think the decision is right to remove it from the Google section but to remove it i would have to disagree...it should have been moved under ''Search engine optimization'' in my oppinion. I can understand the frustration of the topic starter and i also think responses to the topic starter could be a little less hostile sice it was undeserved to get responses as shown below:
We don't delete posts on other people's request. If John doesn't like Mike's post, we don't delete it unless Mike authorizes it for example. If a thread is posted in a forum it doesn't belong in, and moving it is impossible because the thread starter can't post in the right forum yet... It's got to go. We're not anal mods here, if it's borderline we let it through alright, but this was a member's first post probably on the first day of membership whilst the rule is 10 posts in 7 days. That's not borderline and we will not PM about simple stuff like that.
The forum description is this: Why does this site rank where it does = why does this site get indexed like it does. On the other hand: Meaning discussions about Google, the company/the search engine. If he thinks this forum isn't valuable and we delete threads randomly, it might be a good idea for him/her to move on indeed. I'd like to see him/her stay however. And I'm sure we can get this person;s site indexed when the time is right. Maybe he/she might want to look up the possible repercussions of this meta tag: <meta name="revisit-after" content="60 Days" /> Code (markup): In combination with I don' think it's surprising it's not indexed. How is that for service?
Tops30 wrote: Why does this site rank where it does? is of course also search engine related...so this is kind of trivial since it can go both ways if these kind of questions are also appropriate for the Website review section Like you said if you have to tell everyone where to post because new members don't want to take the effort to read the forum rules i can understand the decision to remove it entirely since it would only have taken little effort to place it in the right section. What i am wondering now is it much difference to move the post in contrast to removing it? PM Ãng new members would be a little overboard everytime a post is misplaced but couldn't it just have been moved?
This post wasn't as much spam as a lot of the one's I am seeing recently, however ; I think the jobs of the mods is a lot harder than the task that is set new members, which is to read the FAQ and contribute before mis-placing posts and asking for help. I personally I like to see the board kept clean as possible and commend the job mods do.
True but the focus was on one particular site, which is far from representative of the entire search engine's behaviour. Moving and deleting takes 5 seconds. In the grand scheme of things not a lot of time but on the DP scale of post quantities it can add up. Arguing about it in PMs or threads like these take up half an hour. Point is, if people can't post in the right section because of a VB hack, and then they post it in the wrong one expecting us to move it to the right one, overriding the simple rules... Then what's the point of the rule? You know what... Let's say "Case Closed" based on this rule Just in case you missed it, in my post above I answered the original post that was deleted. Enough said, let's make some money.
Tops30 wrote: The entire search engine behaviour can aplly to one or two or an x amount of sites...don't you agree It could be misleading and confusing if one wants to ask questions related to SEO since indexing is also part of SEO efforts. Move it once...maybe twice and then most will understand what the deal is and could prevent these kind of threads since there is no difference because it only takes 5 seconds to delete or move it, the latter would be better IMHO. No problem if you want to pull rank or something but i just wanted to point out that it could be handled differently since confusion is only logical when there is a section about SEO and a section Website review that is also appropriate to ask questions about indexed pages. SE rank is in IMHO not the same as pages indexed