CPC Wiki Main page...

[Gryzor]

Ok, so most of the day today I've been trying to play with different solutions to promote the forum; but, since we promoted the news/photos/video to the top of the page this doesn't look so feasible unfortunately...

So what I was thinking was a small popup, in-page text box. But I haven't found a suitable solution... so I'm asking for your help. Does anyone know of a script that:

-can have links
-does not create, of course, a normal pop-up but rather an in-page pop-up, with jscript or ajax
-uses cookies to remember when a user has closed it?

Thanks,
T

[MacDeath]

Please no pop-up... I simply hate this when unexpected stuff opens on my screen...


The best way to promote the CPC wiki is to lurk moar on various Retro-Forums...

[Gryzor]

You probably didn't understand what I mean - it's not a real pop-up but an in-page window-like thing. It doesn't need to be closed and it doesn't steal focus and (hopefully) it opens only once... Kind like the new message notification here at the forum??

[TFM]

Please no pop-up... I simply hate this when unexpected stuff opens on my screen...


The best way to promote the CPC wiki is to lurk moar on various Retro-Forums...

Agree totally 

[Gryzor]

You're missing a point - the purpose of a popup or whatever is not to promote the wiki - indeed, for that, the best solution is generated traffic from other sites. The purpose here is to promote the forum on the main page, as has been asked by the users

[AMSDOS]

A Google search reveals that if you search the term "Amstrad CPC" you get all the sites with "Amstrad CPC" within the Main Title, CPCWiki seems to be the first one which doesn't have "Amstrad CPC" in the main title of the page (well second actually if you don't count the "CPC Game Reviews" site). As a consequence it's bringing up Wikipedia's description of the "Amstrad CPCs" as the number 1 hit! This page is coming after sites like "CPC Game Reviews", "Old-Computers", "Amstrad CPC Games Resource", "CPCMANIA" even "Amstrad CPC ROMs / Amstrad CPC Emulators" is above this site! 

There are other forums around which relate to Retro Computing. I go to vintage-computer.com which bring loads of vintage computer collectors together, the problem there is one has to work hard to generate enough interest to create a section for their machines. I was only successful in generating a section for machines which didn't have their own category! Not much has changed since then! 

[Gryzor]

Again we're a bit off-topic, but it's for a good cause

Yes, you're right about the title. I fixed that yesterday. It doesn't have as much significance as you may think - wikipedia is first because it's the most popular (though I'm not sure how Google handles wikipedia; it's vastly popular, but I don't think that each article is more popular than specialty sites), and after all it doesn't have "Amstrad CPC" in its title It really beats me why the other sites come up first (that's why I had asked for specialised SEO help a while back), but you're making a good point - it's worth investigating what they do.

And, yes, spreading the words and link exchange is the best way to go, I agree; this creates organic results and quality interlinking that pushes the site up...

[Gryzor]

Actually I did a search for Amstrad CPC without logging in to Google, and our Wiki comes up at the 10th place!

-Wikipedia
-Images for CPC
-Videos for CPC
-CPCMania
-CPC Game Reviews
-Old-computers.com
-Amstrad-cpc.de
-TACGR
-www.sean.co.uk (!!!???!) (a nice little site though)
-an online ad for someone selling a 464 in Greece (localised results...)
-CPCWiki

Awful...

[arnoldemu]

-www.sean.co.uk (!!!???!) (a nice little site though)

Home of the "Basic Idea" a tutorial and webpages dedicated to Amstrad basic.

[Gryzor]

Home of the "Basic Idea" a tutorial and webpages dedicated to Amstrad basic.

Yes, I know. And the article on debugging Basic programs is good, too. But I'd hardly consider it more popular and/or successful... So why?

[Bryce]

On Google Germany the CPCWiki comes in 9th place (Obviously that Greek guy selling his CPC doesn't advertise in Germany ), Wikipedia DE is first and Wikipedia EN second. Strangely, JavaCPC makes it in at seventh place Well done Markus.

Bryce.

[Gryzor]

Indeed well-done, but done what? Darn...

I have started looking into the technical side of things a bit, there seem to be a few things I can do. But AFAIK, no amount of technical tweaking will get you there - it's the content that does it, and content we have; hence my puzzlement....

[AMSDOS]

Maybe it's more to do with the way you advertise this site. I'm getting CPCWiki in 8th spot now, though the competition is steep. Nich's game reviews are probably doing so well cause he's only dealing with Games for the CPC, old-computers.com, Wikipedia are large websites which deal with a broader audience, old-computers are catering a website dedicated for anyone with an old computer (Amstrad's are only a small minority part of their museum!  ), Wikipedia maybe at the top cause their catering for everyone (regardless)!!    CPCWiki has just moved up a couple of places and Sean McManus' website has gone down. I'm not sure if a slogan would help - I thought I noticed one on a few of those link pages, though wasn't sure if a search engine would utilise that if you included one, describing the site as "all things CPC related", that might have been the process in the past, sometimes to get to the top or near it, they want money don't they?   

[Gryzor]

No, they don't want money - and even if they did I doubt any of the retro-sites would be paying Google off

Anyhow, I *hope* that the reason you gave is not true because it doesn't make much sense promoting bigger sites in their results when smaller sites are more relevant... if nothing else, Wikipedia would come first in about every single topic!

ight now even Sizin Amstrad comes before the wiki, which IMO points to some weird logic from Google... true, its url is amstradcpc.com, but so what?

I wish we had some stats from the other sites as well.

As I said, I'll study those that come first a bit and see why they are there. Hope I get a glimpse...

[AMSDOS]

Gryzor wrote:

No, they don't want money - and even if they did I doubt any of the retro-sites would be paying Google off

Obviously, I should of made a better attempt of hiding my deliberate mistake, instead of sticking it at the end! 

Anyhow, I *hope* that the reason you gave is not true because it doesn't make much sense promoting bigger sites in their results when smaller sites are more relevant... if nothing else, Wikipedia would come first in about every single topic!

Hmmm perhaps, a search for "Search Engine" in Google returns "1. Dogpile", "2. Bing", "3. Web Search Engine - Wikipedia" & "4. Google".  Maybe it's "Google's" way of not making their site the pick of the bunch!    Yahoo on the other hand returns "1. AltaVista", "2. Web Search Engine - Wikipedia", "3. Search Engine Guide", "4. Search Engine - Image Results", "5. Dogpile", "6. Bing", "7. Google", "8. Yahoo". Bizarre!
 
ight now even Sizin Amstrad comes before the wiki, which IMO points to some weird logic from Google... true, its url is amstradcpc.com, but so what?

Guess it's really a matter on what search terminology you're using. If I say "programming+Amstrad" I get Sean McManus' website in first and second position, followed by something on the CPCWiki - the top one being "CPC Plus Sprite Format" page, followed by "BASIC programming on the Amstrad Computers", put "Amstrad CPC" in commas and CPCWiki is the top hit!   
Small sites like mine don't even show in those lists, so if their in there, their right back. My site only really comes up if you specifically type in certain keywords, "pascal" being one "Amstrad" another, though if I do "Turbo Pascal 3" it comes up in the first page (towards the bottom), though I couldn't find it when I searched it as "Turbo Pascal".
Larger sites like these you probably better off typing an activity to go with "Amstrad CPC". Terms like Hardware, Software, Games, Programming would probably give this site more precedence over a "Wikipedia" page about the computer, so a broad search term would return a broad search result about the topic which is probably why Wikipedia takes precedence in that case.

I wish we had some stats from the other sites as well.

I'm not sure how well my old site went (when it was on Geocities), though I know it was extremely difficult to get it up on Google, maybe cause it wasn't setup as a Website as such and it was on a provider which was affiliated with Yahoo. My current site does better cause it's coming up in Google, not that it's bring them in by the dozen, though from people who are specifically looking for that kind of site are picking it up. My website clearly isn't packing them in like this site would be, though with the right search terminology it can be the #1 hit in Google! 

[MiguelSky]

Actually I did a search for Amstrad CPC without logging in to Google, and our Wiki comes up at the 10th place!

-Wikipedia
-Images for CPC
-Videos for CPC
-CPCMania
-CPC Game Reviews
-Old-computers.com
-Amstrad-cpc.de
-TACGR
-www.sean.co.uk (!!!???!) (a nice little site though)
-an online ad for someone selling a 464 in Greece (localised results...)
-CPCWiki

Awful...

Well, in Spain a lot of people names the CPC as "the Amstrad", but the Spectrum is "the Spectrum" (not the "Sinclair"). I think a little change similar to "The Amstrad CPC-Wiki" in the name of the page could enhance this site and make it "visible" for more people.

[robcfg]

You could be right on that subject. If you search "Amstrad" in google, the Amstrad.es pages comes on the top of the list in front of the mighty Wikipedia, and the cpcwiki comes out as the last entry of the third page...

[Gryzor]

I'm really not sure that Google uses the "the" article...

But, interestingly, if you search for "The Amstrad CPC" on Google.co.uk the wiki comes up 4th, while if you search for "Amstrad CPC" it comes up 8th.

On googlegr the results are 4th vs 11th. Argh, it doesn't make much sense...

@robcfg: you're in Spain, so it makes some sense giving you amstrad.es as the first result!

[MiguelSky]

Strange !! But I don't mean the article "the" but the "Amstrad" word.

[Gryzor]

Ah. But "Amstrad" has alwasy been in the title

[MiguelSky]

Mmmmm.... I see...

[robcfg]

Maybe if we had a landing page in spanish with a title like "CPC Wiki - La web más completa de Amstrad", we could boost the site on the spanish searchs.

Just guessing...

[Gryzor]

Mmm! Good point! English, French, Spanish, German? But maybe not the title but the description and keywords?

[TFM]

If you need a translation, let me know.