Thelema Posted December 22, 2005 Gotta love the fact that google.com is a ghost member of these forums, watching over us with Orwellian discrepancy. Not a complaint: don't jump the gun torsten! Its good to challenge us olderfolk who like to think in terms of letter-writing. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
naja naja Posted December 23, 2005 I've always wondered bout google. He/she never posts anywhere that I've seen. I figured it was something to do with the google search engine. So posts here would be available under a google search. Infact I think thats how I found this place. I'm sure torsten will know. So Torsten, whats the deal with this Ghost member? :ph34r: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Torsten Posted December 23, 2005 the google bot is not a full member. he has no rights other than to read. in fact, by identifying himself so clearly I can selectively keep him out of certain forums if I want to (chemistry forum for example if/when the need arises). Google comes to crawl the forums once every 36 hours on average, but I've seen him here as often as 5 times a day. It all depends on linkage and traffic. The forums are a vast information source and I like the fact that google has taken such a keen interest. Other bots have been visiting too, but not as frequently. At this stage I have no intention of keeping any of the search engines out of here. This could change in a different political climate. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
apothecary Posted December 23, 2005 Google determines relevance based on (among other things) meta data and the amount of "out linking" (that is to say, links to other websites with their own relevance ratings). If you think about the average thread in "Ethnobotany", it will contain several of bits of meta data like binomial name, common name, chemical constituents, history, and probably just about any other keyword related to the topic. Considering almost every thread here that could be deemed "informative" has at least 1 or 2 hyperlinks to information that is most likely very relative to the topic, I imagine the SAB forums get a good index rating based on just these two criteria, forget the others :D. I used to know how to check the index rating for a specified URL, but have forgotten. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
