[stanwic]

I was wondering if the tags help with search engine placement, and if our discussions show up in search results at other search engines outside of MyLot. I think they do becuase I just got an email from someone who is not a MyLot user. She said she was searching the internet for infomration on treating depression, and came across a discussion here on MyLot (she actually didn't even remember the site name) that I had responded to and she really liked my response. So she visited my profile page here and found the link to my website, then went to my website and used my contact form there to email me. She really wanted more details about how I dealt with my depression. Anyways, I was thrilled to find out that something I posted was a help to someone. We have acutally emailed multiple times now, and that makes me feel great. So, do you think our discussions are put into search engines?How do you think they are put into search engines?Have you had anyone contact you outside of MyLot because of a discussion?Finally, what are your other thoughts on this?

[bren]

I am happy that your discussion has helped some one out side mylot. I think because of tags search engines were able to pick up discussions of my lot. I appreciate the feeling you are having. Have a nice day.

[webb]

I don't think anyone from outside of mylot would be able to contact me about a discussion, because I don't have a website posted or anything. So I guess I'll never know if someone has wanted to!I think it's very neat that this happened. Obviously your post was so interesting and helpful to someone that they went to a lot of effort to track you down to talk to. How exciting!I would assume that our discussions show up on search engines, but I wouldn't have any idea as to the details. I never even thought about it until I saw this discussion.

[casey]

Yea, I never thought about it either until I got the email and then asked her. I was wondering why she didn't just request me as a friend. But when I emailed her back and asked her what forum she saw my post on, she emailed back and ssid she didn't remember the name but she remembered the title of the discussion, and she said she was just searching for help and came across it. I thought it was pretty neat. Thanks for responding, as always.

[dirrnyg]

I think that it's great that your response here at myLot was helpful to this person; she was obviously searching and actively looking for help, and to know that you were able to help her must be a good feeling. She was certainly creative in her efforts, also!I would have to say that the discussions here are entered into search engines by the tags we place on them. At least Google and Yahoo, because they have to crawl the site constantly for ad placement. I also know that if you do a Google search for your myLot username, your discussions here will pop up! I tried this last week when someone here posted about it. I have not been contacted by anyone outside of this forum yet, but I can see that it could potentially happen. There is just no way to hide anymore, is there? It's got both good and bad points.

[treves]

I am glad that I was able to help her, but I do agree that it has good and bad points. In this instance it was good, but I am sure there are b ad things to, like people spamming with advertisements related to the discussion. I guess htat is just part of being on the internet, though. Thanks for responding.

[nairne]

That's very encouraging indeed.I think the tags work as keywords and when the spiders from other search engine crawl,they pick up those keywords(tags).So, it's likely that those pages will showup during a search,but what fascinated me is that those posts from Mylot showed up in the first page coz most of us hardly ever go to the 2nd page of the search results.This is inspiring for the mylotians who respond with sincere opinions to help a fellow member.Just as you put it,this means the non-mylotians can also get the benefit of the good responses here and consequently might be interested to know more about the site. No one has contacted me for any posts on Mylot,but I'd be over the moon if someone does,lol.3 days back I had noticed that the (blue)tags were showing in the content(body) as well and learned that they were here even before I joined,but were removed.Yesterday,they removed those again.I think this is because more people are linking their discussions to other's through the tags in the content.Had this not been the case,we could have lot more keywords for the search engines to pick up and more topics would show in search engine results.That would be great.Hey,thanks for this brilliant thread!

[franki30]

I too think that it is encouraging. I mean a lot of us here like to give advice and help people, and it is great to know that we are not just reaching the mylot community. It makes me a little more excited about mylot, if that is possible. Thanks for responding.

[akinlana]

Hey,Thanks for the best response!:)

[addam]

I have been wondering about that too. Yesterday I didn't do a single tag, and posted about the same. my earnings were down from the day before. so I'm wondering if tags don't have an impact in the formula. I can understand having tags for some, but many of the comments just do not warrant it.