how long should it take for a new website to be listed on google?

[ßsimian]

wrote and hosted my first website. all that shows on a google search is that it is a soon to expire/expired url. i grabbed it when it wasn't renewed, took almost a year. i did the google "add my url" and all the other things i can find to get listed in search engines.

soooo...... how long should it take to get it to be listed correctly? anyone try lately? it's nothing special, just a few pages of video services for hire.

if anyone would be kind enough to visit it, i would post the url. not looking to spam here. just a new site i need listed. i even made new nym so no one would know it's a long time poster.

[lordsmurf]

Anywhere from 6 weeks to 9 months, depending on the SEO and the content. Search engines to not replace traditional advertising.

[thecoalman]

If its an old domain that was used previously you may have walked into a blacklisted domain.

For a startup site it usually takes a few weeks as suggested by LS but on the other hand I built one recently that was almost immediately indexed. The difference there was it had a good inbound link from a well established site. Might have been a little bit of luck too.

There's lots of factors but if you don't have at least a few pages listed after a month or two then I'd be concerned and look into reasons as to why its not getting indexed.

PM me a link and I'll look at it.

[ßsimian]

thanks guys. i'm doing the local advertising, and will keep adding to the website. maybe a phpbb will add a bit more traffic.

thecoalman - are you using phpbb 3.01 on your site? i read the install info and that part should go ok, but it doesn't say what i need to code into the website to display it? did i miss something?

[thecoalman]

Well I didn't see anything with a quick check what i did was check the internet archive to see if you had anything bad residing there. Doesn't mean there wasn't anything bad there. Just let it go for while it should pop up eventually. How long since you put up regular pages that it hasn't been indexed?

As far as my forum it is modified version of phpbb3, I don't understand your question. all the files for a basic install are included in the download.Once you complete the install instructions you'll have a functioning forum. You'll need to go into the ACP to create new forums, is that what your asking?

[ßsimian]

the forum question was what html code do i need to write to display the forum? i haven't done the install on the host yet. i don't have a link to/or a "forum" page written yet in my code. it's a clean install and i haven't ever attempted a forum before. does the install write an forum.html page i link to?

[lordsmurf]

Unmodified phpbb will not help you at all. It will need SEO modifications to stand a chance PLUS it's going to need content that generates traffic AND the traffic that comes with it.

I suggest vBulletin (commercial, $160) over phpbb. Or SMF (free). Anything but phpBB.

[ßsimian]

lordsmurf, i'm not looking for google rank. just a website that's findable using google. even typing my url into google right now only shows links to listings of my domain in soon to be or expired domains for sale.

search engine optimization could come later if at all. i was just going to use the bb for communicating with customers, announcements and if anyone wanted to add other stuff that's fine. not a traffic monster like this one.

[thecoalman]

the forum question was what html code do i need to write to display the forum?

When you install it it will install to a folder, if you're doing it from the control panel then it will probably default to www.example.com/phpbb3/ unless they give you a choice.

Having said that skip the control panel install. Download the latest release from phpbb.com and do it manually. Running any type of software like this requires that you keep it up to date and I have yet to see a control panel from a web host that will also do the updates. The install procedure is easy, just follow the directions. If you run into any problems you can ask on phpbb's site. The experience of installing it will give you something to build on, its relatively minor but every but helps. In the event you somehow manage to screw it up, just start over.

The only pieces of information you need to install phpbb is the database name, database user, and password.

Assuming you have a LAMP server download XAMPP, this will allow you to create a testing environment on your local machine. You could just install phpbb on it or any other php/MySql based software before actually installing in a live enviroment.

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Out of the box phpbb isn't great SEO-wise but its much better than phpbb2. There was a lot of improvements. The single biggest issue with phpbb IMO is the duplicate URL's but these are fairly minimal compared to phpbb2. There are mods that address it, mos out of the box forum software has that issue because the SEO'ing of URL's requires rewriting them and that is not something that can be done consistently across different hosting environments . The othertwo big issues is poor titles and non-existent description tags. Looking at Vbulletin they don't appear to be that much better. If there is any specific complaints LS I'll be happy to tell you why you're wrong. :P

Just to add phpbb3 is probably the fastest forum software there is considering the features. Feel free to click around mine or the one on phpbb's site and tell me I'm wrong. I'm not even running any server optimization like eAccelerator. I could make it faster, roughly cut it by 2/3's for execution time.

As I've commented before if you want to get down in the trenches and make a truly unique highly modified forum and maintain performance there is no replacement for phpbb. If on the other hand you want one click modifications and limits to what you can do with it "hold your hand" software then vBulletin is your best bet. If ou wanted to compare it to software in the video world Vbulletin is something like Ulead Video Studio and phpbb3 is like Virtualdub.

[ßsimian]

i am writing the code on a windows machine, but the actual offsite host is a linux box. i tried to get the xampp windows package to work on winXP and can't for the life of me find a way to make a database in the mysql admin page. none show up in the database tab and there is no way to add one? i can get both apache and mysql to run but without the database phpbb won't connect.

[thecoalman]

http://localhost/phpmyadmin/

Try that link for phpmyadmin

[ßsimian]

never did get xampp to run on winXP - the msql service just was never visible to phpbb setup.

but - i spent the last 8 hours setting phpbb3 up on the remote host. i'll take it live sometime tonight. i can't seem to make it look the way i want, there must be some options other than the 2 included default looks or at least some way to customize it. i can't find any other templates on their site though, just more for v2s.

if i pm you later could you see if it's safe and secure enough?

[ßsimian]

thecoalman - well the forum's up. i won't pm you. if you see this maybe give it a once over. it's plain jane. i can't get it to run properly without errors with my css yet, so for now it's freestanding.

[thecoalman]

There are styles avaialble here: http://www.phpbb.com/community/viewforum.php?f=74

These are all unofficial and not officially released yet but should work.

If you want to modify it yourself all edits should be done to the files themselves found at yourforumfolder/styles/prosilver/

The CSS files can be found in theme/

The html templates in templates/


***Be sure to go into the ACP and under server settings next to the selection "Recompile stale style components:" select yes.

-------------edit------------

I see you're using the subsilver2 theme, I'd suggest the prosilver theme as it looks nicer IMO. One ting to note is prosilver relies heavily on CSS and background images to give it the effects it has. Some are very subtle but you can really make it look nice with some simple adjustments to images and the colors.

The two main HTML templates you're going to want to look at are overall_header.html and overall_footer.html , they are self explamatory...