I would be happy to host a Facebook page for The Philosophy Forums . The Facebook page that we had for the other forum brought around 10 new followers a week. It's an idea!

I was thinking the exact thing. I even googled the question, and it gave some ideas. It would seem that if you Google "philosophy," you'd want the name of this site to appear on those sites somewhere. PF has 12 years of building itself up, but we'll get there.

Buzzwords, topical discussions, lots of tags on topics, and lots of activity. Those are good ways to improve search engine rankings.

I doubt that PF gets as many hits from people searching the words "philosophy" or "forum" as it does from them searching phrases, or topics that are discussed there.

Great idea Tiff! I say run with it, but I'm not in charge.

It takes time for Google to like you. It comes down roughly to (a) site structure, load speed and other software issues, (b) how many other sites link to this site along with how much Google likes those sites, and (c) high quality changing content that's relevant to people's searches. There are many other aspects but I haven't been paying attention to SEO for the past couple of years.

PF is at the top because of its age, reliability, crawlability, and masses of high quality content. Its rise to the top of the search results is one of Paul's great successes. If we can get as much high quality philosophical discussion going as possible, as soon as possible, we'll have some chance of picking up people from Google. But the competition is immense and it won't happen any time soon.

The Google bot has visited the site, I think, but it didn't stay for long. It may be back in the next couple of weeks, and hopefully then it'll take a closer look and index more pages.

There may be some technical barriers here. It's possible that this forum software is not very SEO-friendly, and because I'm not in control of it I can't quickly make the necessary changes. However, technical issues, i.e., aspect (a), are the least important when it comes to pleasing Google; if there's relevant content here the bot will find it.

One thing I can do is set up a Google Analytics account and add the site to Google Webmaster Tools. They'll help me see how the site is performing month to month.

It's a great idea Tiff. Note that it's The Philosophy Forum, singular. I always hated that plural nonsense.

Didn't take all that long in my experience. I once co-founded a website that earned over forty thousand members, and over a million unique visits a month, in only a few months. Of course it it had a lot of quality content, I should know, I wrote most of it. Though, I also was strongly opposed to ads, paying for anything, and eventually doing any work, preferring to leave it all to my dozen unpaid staff members, and owner programmer of the site, and it eventually flopped in my absence.

Point being, I think that we could do a lot, if we just made a lot of serious topics, on all of the issues, grew the content, kept up to date on current events, and discussed them as well (probably most importantly), and well, then we would see plenty of results.

I don't know anything about programming, and how important that is for google to like us though.

I'm also going to do an analysis of the site's SEO-friendliness and if there are big issues I'll add them as feature requests to send to the developers.

The site gets 65% on seositecheckup.com (or something like that--it was yesterday I did it). Many of the problems it flags up are not that serious.

Woo hoo! Sorry about the plural and thank you for the correction because it really matters. I will set up the page and link you to it before it goes live so everyone can give their input, then the administrators here can give fiinal approval

I think we should also try to think of different ways of doing things, organizing things, or whatever. As you'll have noticed, I unimaginatively set this site up mostly in accordance with PF.

Off the top...reading groups that we all participate in, say one philosophical paper a month or something (reading groups don't have to be full books). First suggestion, an easy read: "The Extended Mind" by Clark and Chalmers.

Does anyone know Twitter or InstaGram? I don't hold an account for either but it would seem that we could set up an account at both, for The Philosophy Forum. Is it possible that we could bring in too many folks at once, to effectively moderate?

I need some ideas of a Profile Picture for The Philosophy Forum Facebook page. Basic letters work but I see that TPF is taken in images on Google. If you can think of anything post it and we can change it as the wind blows or keep it consistent.

I did send out 50 invites to the potential "safety boat" (in case PF dies) via PF PMs... but I maxed it out and had to quit for a little while.

Anyway...

... it seems this 'Ark' is about to become a 'luxury cruise ship' and PF might well hit an iceberg.

Meow!

GREG

Okay I need a list of those who should be Facebook administrator's but here is what I have so far, so please feel free to *Follow* 8-)
https://www.facebook.com/The-Philosophy-Forum-1638176023130776/

Nice work Tiff.

Thanks, @Tiff !

Tiff.. I was wondering... would it make sense to put a blurb on the facebook page that directs people to the old PF... just to explain what password trafficking is and how to stay safe?

I'm familiar with Twitter. It's the only social media I use. Not sure how to advertise with it, but we used it for activist-related shtuff, and keeping tabs on news sources.

It is really up to the administrators here. The PF Facebook page, which I was removed editor of with the sale, is still up but not a word or picture has changed or been updated. The PF Facebook page has a site address that directs them to the Forums themselves. Likewise the TPF has an address that directs a reader here.

Thoughts?

Is it possible to set up a homepage of sorts on Twitter? I sent out probably three posts a week on FB, one was humorous, one was quote from a Philosopher and one quote from a PF Member that linked it back to the forums. Sometimes that one joke or quote would garner 10 new followers on FB, other times it falls flat. Take a look at the history of PF Facebook and you will get a feel for the flow which can always be expanded with some help. https://www.facebook.com/philosophyforums

That's pretty cool. It is possible to set up something similar on Twitter, though you are limited in how many characters you tweet. You can always link-back to a blog of sorts if you'd like to post longer highlights.

I imagine something like https://twitter.com/nytimes account would be good to emulate. All you need is an email account to register. Then you need to garner followers and retweets to get noticed.

EDIT: Should probably add a mention in here --
@ArguingWAristotleTiff

It is really up to the administrators here. The PF Facebook page, which I was removed editor of with the sale, — ArguingWAristotleTiff

Oh, I thought it was your page. Nevermind. :)

I just sent out 15 more invites, as my PM modus in PF was operational again.

Let's see if anyone comes.

Meow!

GREG

What about threads like Currently Reading? I always liked that one. Could it go in The Lounge maybe?

Go ahead. Make it your's.

It's already in Books

Belay that order.

Ohh look how you did that! How cool!

We need some more "lower quality" posters. Many of the current members are made up of a selection of the better posters from pf. Conversing with them may not be the best entry way for new members. We need people who are worried about solipsism, scepticism, have weird ideas about God etc. We need more people whose views are incorrect in obvious ways.

Haha!

While funny, I rather look forward to having a discussion with folk who ain't all fuggered up like that ;). Not that that's bad, but...

Maybe we could get into some other issues now -- even supposing that PF works out OK -- that we can "spar" with one another.