This shit is so long

[djt820]

I've been away for months and come back to this:

It's so ridiculously long and makes an extra line. It's so cluttered and ridiculous. FIX IT.

[Shevanel]

I understand the use of the sub-title, and whole heartedly support it, but it doesn't need to be there on that link. I know I'm repeating myself, but I agree with the OP.

[Lychee]

+1

[x2x2x2x2y2]

I agree. It does feel too long.

[Chip]

Not gonna change. It's for SEO. Give it up. It was shorter until somebody bitched about one group being excluded.

[Shevanel]

It still flooded over to the second line. Also, it's kind of rude to say it was "Bitching" about one of the groups being excluded, when it was more like pointing out.

Can you explain the reasoning behind the Search Engine Optimization please? Maybe it would help me to understand why you're not being too particularly nice about it in this and your previous posts about it in the other threads.

[djt820]

Thanks for assuming I know what SEO means. And it was very assholish for you to say that last sentence so no, I won't give it up; it's stupidly long and annoying.

[Lychee]

I agree, I feel that you could deal with this far more politely. And instead of merely telling people to 'give it up' (such a dictatorial phrase) you could listen to the opinions of the community.

[djt820]

Originally Posted by Pauline

I agree, I feel that you could deal with this far more politely. And instead of merely telling people to 'give it up' (such a dictatorial phrase) you could listen to the opinions of the community.

Yes. Agreed.

[Stuie]

Which search engine are you trying to optimise for? Would you kindly explain how it works and why we need to have such a wordy slogan? Also, will the site redesign help with this?

[Eleanor Rigby]

Hey guys, calm down please, it's just a title, no need to be aggressive with each others about that
(and be glad that I don't start bitching about the fact my user group is not represented
Ok Ok, I was kidding here )
Take care all of you, Cécile

[Owen]

The purpose of the forum title's length is to make it easier for people to find us when they use Google or other search engines, and it has been successful in that regard, so we aren't planning on changing it any time soon. The length of the title is just a necessary evil to make that happen, but considering how much there is already to "clutter" up the top (the big red rule, specifically), I don't see why that in particular is so annoying.

And forgive Chip for his temper, guys; the staff is also human, just like you. We've already had to listen to people complain about the length of the title in the What would you like to see on EC in future? thread, which is probably why Chip is so short-tempered about it now. Here's the explanation he posted in that thread:

Originally Posted by Chip

Long, complicated story but... Google and other search engines give weight to some things much more than others. One of them is page title, another is keywords or phrases in links. All of these are populated by the data from the same field.

Honestly, though, I also agree with him when he said

Originally Posted by Chip

If people are really getting their panties in a wad because of some text at the top of a page.... my response is... you have too much time on your hands

Grimace and bear it for now and soon you won't even notice it; as a moderator, I have to see the full title in many more ways than you do on a regular basis, and I've still gotten used to it.

[djt820]

Sure they're humans but mods and admins are supposed to be model citizens so there's no excuse for being a dick when you're in that kind of position (That being an admin). Even the responses you just posted like "you have too much time on your hands". No, you're not listening to people complaining about how fucking awful it looks. This is a legitimate complaint MANY people have and I don't think it's worth a few extra Google hits and its definitely not appropriate to be such a dick on an issue. I can imagine a "slip-up" every once in a short while but I'm seeing more than that, in regards to Chip about this issue and that's not fair or appropriate.

Am I wrong in being offended by this?

[x2x2x2x2y2]

While I do think Chip could've been politer, I also think the OP could've been politer. I mean, saying "FIX IT" isn't exactly nice or respectful.

[Martin]

It's not an ideal solution to making the site more search-engine friendly, but it is one of the solutions available to us. The nature of this site prevents us from just installing vBSEO as it is and allowing it to make the URL's more search-friendly. There are parts of this site which are inevitably cut off to guests and bots in order to protect the identity of our members, and that will give us less links on search engines as a result of not letting them link to those areas (member profiles, albums, wall messages etc). I don't think it is necessarily unfair to compensate for that loss by optimising the title of this forum so that it includes the keywords that people will be searching for on Google should they need support and advice about LGBT-related issues.

I also echo what Gamer am I said about it affecting the staff. There are parts of the staff features which have been affected by this, such as the link to Admin/ModCP, but it is something we have just had to deal with and get used to. If that forum title allows us to maximise our hits on search engines without needing to submit any member information then that is a very small price to pay in my eyes, and I think it's a setting that most of us feel comfortable with, despite how annoying the title may be.

Which search engine are you trying to optimise for? Would you kindly explain how it works and why we need to have such a wordy slogan? Also, will the site redesign help with this?

At the moment it is set up to submit information to Google, and Yahoo also receives submitted links on some days but is a lot more tempermental. We're planning to get Bing set up in the near-future, as far as I know.

I'm not entirely sure how the search-engine bots work so you might need to ask Chip for more information, but the uber-basics that I have gathered from discussions is that there are certain parts of a webpage that Google and search engines focus on than other parts. The title of the forum is one as that is the name that appears when we get a hit on Google, therefore having the title include the keywords for EC will help Google put us on its search engines and increase our positioning on results because of relevancy. If somebody typed in "EmptyClosets" then that would inevitably be one of the top results, whereas now somebody could type "coming out resources" and the keywords within the forum title would allow us to appear as a higher and more relevant result on the results page.

Also, these optimisation settings for SEO aren't just giving us bits of traffic here and there. It was set up on April 8th, and by April 20th unique visits had risen 40% and google searches risen 57%. It has likely risen even more since then so the long link isn't just there to be irritating or give us a couple of more hits. I don't deny that I find it irritating, but it's a small price to pay if the site can be so visible without Google even needing to looking at our membership base and other active areas of the site.

As for the posts, x2y2 nailed it. The overall tone of posts in this thread don't really give a nice vibe, and i think that discussions on any feedback can be done without letting irration get the better of us, which numerous people seem to have let happen. I don't want to patronise you all by saying how we should all be acting, but let's start again and we can discuss the grievances you have with the title without anybody offending anybody else.

I know that there are some of you who find it to be irritating, long, unnecessary and so on, but it is a needed feature if we are to let vBSEO work properly. Seth paid $149 for us to use the feature, therefore the customisation for it does need to be set up adequately so that it isn't a waste of money for him. Sure, the title is long and rather unattractive when we look at it, but it isn't unbearable at the same time. As I've said already, it is a small price to pay to compensate for the privacy issues that we face with member profiles. If the title wasn't doing anything for the search engines then I wouldn't try and justify keeping it, but it is having a great effect as it contains the most vital keywords that people will use when looking for a site like EC.

Martin.

PS. I also apologise if there any spelling mistakes and so forth. I have only just woken up and I didn't expect to be typing out such a long post so early.

[Shevanel]

Originally Posted by Martin

It's not an ideal solution to making the site more search-engine friendly, but it is one of the solutions available to us. The nature of this site prevents us from just installing vBSEO as it is and allowing it to make the URL's more search-friendly. There are parts of this site which are inevitably cut off to guests and bots in order to protect the identity of our members, and that will give us less links on search engines as a result of not letting them link to those areas (member profiles, albums, wall messages etc). I don't think it is necessarily unfair to compensate for that loss by optimising the title of this forum so that it includes the keywords that people will be searching for on Google should they need support and advice about LGBT-related issues.

I also echo what Gamer am I said about it affecting the staff. There are parts of the staff features which have been affected by this, such as the link to Admin/ModCP, but it is something we have just had to deal with and get used to. If that forum title allows us to maximise our hits on search engines without needing to submit any member information then that is a very small price to pay in my eyes, and I think it's a setting that most of us feel comfortable with, despite how annoying the title may be.

At the moment it is set up to submit information to Google, and Yahoo also receives submitted links on some days but is a lot more tempermental. We're planning to get Bing set up in the near-future, as far as I know.

I'm not entirely sure how the search-engine bots work so you might need to ask Chip for more information, but the uber-basics that I have gathered from discussions is that there are certain parts of a webpage that Google and search engines focus on than other parts. The title of the forum is one as that is the name that appears when we get a hit on Google, therefore having the title include the keywords for EC will help Google put us on its search engines and increase our positioning on results because of relevancy. If somebody typed in "EmptyClosets" then that would inevitably be one of the top results, whereas now somebody could type "coming out resources" and the keywords within the forum title would allow us to appear as a higher and more relevant result on the results page.

Also, these optimisation settings for SEO aren't just giving us bits of traffic here and there. It was set up on April 8th, and by April 20th unique visits had risen 40% and google searches risen 57%. It has likely risen even more since then so the long link isn't just there to be irritating or give us a couple of more hits. I don't deny that I find it irritating, but it's a small price to pay if the site can be so visible without Google even needing to looking at our membership base and other active areas of the site.

As for the posts, x2y2 nailed it. The overall tone of posts in this thread don't really give a nice vibe, and i think that discussions on any feedback can be done without letting irration get the better of us, which numerous people seem to have let happen. I don't want to patronise you all by saying how we should all be acting, but let's start again and we can discuss the grievances you have with the title without anybody offending anybody else.

I know that there are some of you who find it to be irritating, long, unnecessary and so on, but it is a needed feature if we are to let vBSEO work properly. Seth paid $149 for us to use the feature, therefore the customisation for it does need to be set up adequately so that it isn't a waste of money for him. Sure, the title is long and rather unattractive when we look at it, but it isn't unbearable at the same time. As I've said already, it is a small price to pay to compensate for the privacy issues that we face with member profiles. If the title wasn't doing anything for the search engines then I wouldn't try and justify keeping it, but it is having a great effect as it contains the most vital keywords that people will use when looking for a site like EC.

Martin.

PS. I also apologise if there any spelling mistakes and so forth. I have only just woken up and I didn't expect to be typing out such a long post so early.

Thank you, Martin. That was informative, and the kind of post I had been looking for in response to this topic.

[ArcaneVerse]

Could you not just change the font size?

[Martin]

Originally Posted by ArcaneVerse

Could you not just change the font size?

Not that I am aware of. vBulletin only allows you to type in the homepage name that you want for the site rather than allowing you to customise its display via fonts and sizes etc. It's just a little textbox that you type letters in, rather than the typical postbox that has all the special settings for customising a post with BBcode.

Martin.

[Jim1454]

Originally Posted by djt820

I've been away for months and come back to this:
Image

It's so ridiculously long and makes an extra line. It's so cluttered and ridiculous. FIX IT.

YOU are complaining about the tone that Chip used in responding?!?!?

YOU labled this thread to start with as "This SHIT is so long", which in my opinion is unecessarily crude. Then YOU finished up with a demand, not a request or a question. As if YOU have some kind of special status here, and the rest of us are your slaves.

So I'd say YOU need to use some manners if you expect others to do the same.

[TriBi]

Sorry - but I totally agree with Jim. I actually shook my head when I looked at the first post and decided I'd rather not answer (even if I could have done so effectively) because I thought the opening post was rude beyond belief.