Something I've Noticed About Google

[Boojum]

Let me preface what I am about to say by stipulating that it is no more than my own observations of Google's listings as pertains to my own site.

 

Searching for my site by name, I find that Google lists among its results those forum posts in which I have referred to my site in the body of the post. What I do not find is any sign of any of my signatures.

 

This leads me to believe that Google may have an algorithm or other mechanism for filtering out forum signatures in general. (Note, however, that I say may. Your experience could well be completely different.)

[annie]

Or it could be a case of not making what's under images searchable. Or under text for that matter.

[Boojum]

I actually had my URL spelled out in my signature. And the signature did not appear on Google's pages.

[annie]

You're right. They indexed the profile page, though.

[Boojum]

That was the case for me as well, annie.

 

I think Google's figured out how easy it is to spam the search engines with hundreds or thousands of posts, and implemented a safeguard against that practice.

[ViergeUS]

Boojum is correct. I have the Google Search Appliance installed on a secondary server used for my corporate intranet services at work. They have it to where you can actually stop the searching of forum posts for information on your website. I believe if you contact my Google representative, Jon Venderhone, he'll tell you that there's a mechanism that stops the spamming of any Google search engine. I'll check more into this and give you guys some more feedback.

[MikeJ]

Look at the google cached pages of these forums and it should be quite obvious why signatures don't get indexed.

[TCH-Thomas]

Look at the google cached pages of these forums and it should be quite obvious why signatures don't get indexed.

Sorry Mikej. I just checked a cached page of a post I did. I dont get it.