Help the TFP: Use relevant titles!
 

Relevant titles are good for the TFP! I'll make this easy for you to understand and then I'll get into the nitty gritty.

Simply: Put the key words that your thread is about in the title of your thread. If your thread is about Chihuahuas, title it "Chihuahuas are cool" instead of "These dogs are cool." If your thread is about a yeast infection, title it "Yeast Infection - What do I do?" not "What do I do?"

When you create a thread, you might notice that the thread's title gets used in the URL of the thread. For example the thread titled "Traffic Ticket: Court or Traffic School?" has the following URL: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/general-discussion/138598-traffic-ticket-court-traffic-school.html

Not only that, you'll notice that the title of the thread also appears in the title bar of your browser when you're viewing the thread.

What you're witnessing are 2 of the 3 basic qualifications of a search engine optimized page. The third qualification is the description of the page, which is comprised of the first 150 characters of the original post. If you use the same keywords in your first sentence, you're doing good. If all 3 of these elements (the URL, title and description) contain the same key words, then search engines like Google will rank them favorably in the search results when someone searches for those key words.

That means the TFP gets more traffic and recognition. We live to fight another day.

What I've just described are basic strategies in SEO (search engine optimization) which is the method of getting your website ranked higher in search engines like Google or Yahoo. The effects of ranking higher are, obviously, more traffic from searches.

So, the simple act of creating threads with relevant titles is adding value to the TFP and attracting more potential members. Please help out!

Damn, I was hoping that this was going to be a thread about Star Wars: Clone Wars.

Talk about misleading.

;)

Actually, it's a bloody good point, and it frustrates the hell out of me that I look at some threads half a dozen times in the course of a few visits, because I haven't got a clue what's in them until I once again read the OP and find that it's that same thread I have no need to respond to.

Ho hum.

Sorry, but I really like my title for this thread http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/general...hite-oops.html

But I'll use relevant ones in the future. Another SEO thing to consider is that because of the forum selection pulldown box on each page, "Titty Board" is listed on every page. I remember the Something Awful forum admin saying that when they changed the display name of their anime forum from "Anime Death Tentacle Rape Whorehouse" to "ADTRW," the search strings they were using to test SA forum threads (which don't have the nifty title-in-url that we have) jumped up from down in the triple-digit search rankings to the first page because Google prioritizes family-friendly results, especially when safe search is on. I don't think that "titty" is going to hurt us as much as "rape" and "whorehouse" hurt them, but we have a smaller, slower-moving forum and any little thing could help.

The Forum Jump dropdown is hidden from spiders, so we don't really have to worry about that.

I am guilty of it in the past but I really do hate vague thread titles. The worst are the ones like "What do I......." or "Yeah, so....."

thanks for the top hal. ill definately keep that in mind.

i also think that you should make this one of those sticky posts like the 'newbies read this first' thread, so that when we do get newbies they follow suit.

My brother works in the SEO business...just a side note.

Didn't we establish a policy a couple of months back where moderators would rename threads that weren't properly named? Of course, that wouldn't change the words in the URL, but it still should help to some degree, right?

Yeah, but its not always going to happen. Also, I figure this information is good for everyone to know.

do the tags at the bottom of the page of each thread help in giving higher rankings?

But isn't TFP about expressing ourselves? How can I express myself without witty titles that have nothing to do with the subject of my thread! How will I draw viewers into my video of a Binary marble calculator without an awesome title like "18 year old babysitter!"

I can't work this way!

Tags help more with the classification of the threads on this site, however they are good for keyword relevancy for the search engines.

Thanks for volunteering some more work for us hardworking staffers, RL! :thumbsup:

We do still rename stuff (at least I do), but it would be nice if it were done right the first time. At least for the anal folks like me.

I've got your back, don't worry! ;)

And, I totally agree.