h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've never entered a search into Google and ended up with a H2G2 reference, it's Wikipedia firstly and all the rest next but never ever ever this place and if the answer is to change the search parameters then that's the wrong answer.

oooh, I was going to ask that yesterday but things got,well, sensitive
I tried to read it up on google but didn't get it with the things crawling and that

before things got, er well, I spent some time,ok a lot of time googling entries, off the front page and from the random generator for everyday information I am unlikely to go past page 2 of a search

Ham and Yam Chili, Isles of wight Fortifications, Sophie Dawes and Hendersons Relish, Alcholic Ginger beer.As did Douglas but the link didn't work until the third time This was a small number of entries

I know it is not the right answer but search terms made a difference, Spurn Point, or Spurn Head, page 3, Spurn Point and Head page one, Shadowmarch Tad Williams, page three, sticking in Shadowmarch *by* Tad Williams got it to page 2

If I google stuff in non-test conditions h2g2 doesn't come up in results

I've tried a few times, with moderate success... try copy/paste QOTD, it seems to work most times (today as the first item.

Also, The title of your Edited Entries may show up (say 1 in 3for mine?) - if there are no songs with names anywhere near...

Googling your question (I know that's not really what you meant) produces this ' The Hootoo Home of Today http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/alabaster/A1096625 ' as the fifth result.

Googling "Why does h2g2 never show up on a google?" produces many h2g2 results on the first page - including several variations on this very question.... Worth a look.

Somewhere during the search, I noticed mention of Mr603's Entry on 'Lucas Radebe - Footballer'. He will be pleased to know that googling just the Entry title produced his Entry http://news.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A29265555 as the fifth result.

Some interesting comments here: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/archive/index.php/t-602235.html - and one or two interesting commentators.

I'm quite pleased that googling "Who was Mohammed" brings my Guide Entry up as the second hit. Quite a common search term I would have thought.

It does for me. In fact I was a first hit on a search last week about whether Charlotte Rampling had said her perfect husband was a Frenchman with a 9inch tongue who could breathe through his ears (she has been married to Jean Michel Jarre.)

I made the same comment about her saying it years ago on Hootoo and that came up first on Google.

I've now got other references to the quote as a general description of the perfect lover.

Of course, that definition can't apply to me...I'm not a Frenchman.

was it 6inch tongue or 9? Sorry but h2g2 didn't come up

Swls did, unfortunately on how to deliver a lamb didn't, I really like that entry, but would have googled how to deliver a lamb, not how to lamb a sheep

sorry was obsessing about this yesterday and wondering if GB's title had been Spurn Point, or swl's 'how to deliver a lamb' it would have put them up the list even a little?

I just googled up tracing your family tree back to 1937 and (my) HooToo entry came up second

I often find hootoo entries come up in Google even when I am searching for something else (usually while sub-editing a hootoo entry).

GB

I am not really certain of what was meant in the opening post here. However, it is true to say that the majority of our readers find us via google. As in tens of thousands of people per day who arrive here to read about a subject they have googled.

I can see, from the stats, the entries that are most being read, where the readers came from ( ie google and other search engines). I can also see which search terms they used.

However, if the subject is one that is covered countless times on other websites, then the normal rules of competition come into play. If one of our entries covers a more obscure subject, or is in fact the one that has had the most visits in connection with the search term, then h2g2 is figured more highly.

It's chicken and egg - write a *good* piece and make it relevant to the subject. Make sure that the actual content is not already done to death by better writers. Write stuff that people will want to read about. Make it good, then send it into Peer Review.

We have readers who like our entries - and they find us via google.

Peanut


I've posted 6inch tongue previously.

on Googling:

"charlotte rampling 6 inch tongue"

You now get my post from Digital Spy...yes, I post on another site as well...I'm a forum hussy.

Searching "h2g2 conversation" with some keywords of a
vaguely remembered subject line is a great way to find
old lost threads.


~jwf~

EG: "h2g2 conversation should I stay"

will give you 28 pages of assorted h2g2 conversations
on the subject before a wiki entry on Eoin Colfer's
'And Another Thing' comes up with discussion of Ford's
decision regarding Random's credit card...

But you would have to have more of the subject line
to find this classic thread:

THIS classic thread of angst where a researcher was ASKING for a vote on whether he should stay or go: http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/alabaster/F19585?thread=5301558 where I find to my shock I had made this posting: >> I am dismayed that you would actually allow such a decision to be made by the tyranny of democracy. Given that the average lot around here lately is illiterate, drunk and/or on meds for some pychological condition it's like asking the dogs in the kennel if they think the keeper should feed them or let them go. They'll all bark yes just to hear themselves bark. << I think I have mellowed. ~jwf~

Why doesn't h2g2 show up in Google as often as Wikipedia does?

From my last conversation with Pastey on the topic, here's a brief explanation.

The Beeb absolutely cocked it up massively when building this site.

Now, a longer one. The Beeb did many things that mean that h2g2 just isn't Google-friendly.

1) Google hates duplicate content and won't rank it. Every single one of our articles is duplicated many times over for various skins and BBC sub-pages. Case in point - my article above shows up on a BBC Lancashire sub-site. So to Google, h2g2 looks like a site that plagiarises itself and obscure BBC pages.

2) Our page URLs are terrible. Look at Wiki's entry on The Battle of Waterloo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Waterloo
And ours: http://www.h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/brunel/A5403881

Wiki's URL shows that the "wiki" sub folder has a page on the Battle of Waterloo. Ours shows that the "brunel" sub folder of the "h2g2" sub folder in the "dna" sub folder has a page called A503881. Google knows wiki has a page relevant to the search. And thinks we're doing lots of pages about dual carriageways.

3) The two points above create a self-fulfilling prophecy. Google likes to see links into a website. Wiki gets millions of links, because people find content there and link back to it. Because they can't find us, they can't link to us, making it less likely that people will find us in the future.

Which is a shame, because what Google like more than anything (following recent updates) is unique, well-written content. And we've got that in spades. It's just a shame that the issues that make the site hard to use are also sabotaging our Google listings.

That makes sense Mr603, thanks for the explanation

I often find h2g2 entrys coming up on searches, when I'm looking for something, but not directly trying to find h2g2 pages...
I seem to remember soem discussion of our SEO a while back, and the non-logical page names (A6969696969 rather than /pageabout69, etc), was a major reason, I knwo from doing stuff on my own websit e years back, I got myself striaght on to page one of google, with just having my main keywords not only in metatags and page titles/HTML on the page, but in the URL, seemed to achieve it pretty quickly, even with my websites low google rank (not many other pages on the web linked to it) ...

I seem to recall the plan was to not try do anything to improve it at the moment, as the new code for the new version of the site is where we'd want to concentrate on the SEO once pliny is up and in full swing

Since its relevant to several comments, and hasn't been directly addressed google has major http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filter_bubble aspect . Its not as bad as could be ( I can still search Jungle without getting only LoL related results), but it can still lead to significant individual differences.

"I seem to recall the plan was to not try do anything to improve it at the moment, as the new code for the new version of the site is where we'd want to concentrate on the SEO once pliny is up and in full swing"

Yeah, I remember that. Yet more work on Pastey's plate.

The problem is, that might not even help as much as we'd like, thanks to the BBC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-lancashire/plain/A29265555 will be favoured by Google over anything on h2g2, just because the BBC News site is hugely influential and well regarded by the search engines.

We'd have to get the BBC to do what they said they would, and stop hosting h2g2 content. But I can't see that being too high up on their to-do list.