Topic: Site Improvement Idea.

[osrevad]

This idea would take some work, but I don't think nearly as much as the site-wide PNG conversion that happened a few years ago. This idea could potentially increase the site visibility a good deal.



The PageRank of VGMap.com is good enough to be #1 if you search for "game maps" and other similar terms. But go to Google and search the internet for video game maps for a specific game. Unfortunately, I've found that VGMaps usually isn't on the front page if you do this.



The reason specific games usual don't show up nearly as well is that the name of the game doesn't appear as text anywhere on the page that the maps are listed.



So my proposal is simply to  find a way to put the name of the game somewhere, and have it still look good. I realize the name of game is already contained in the logo, but I still don't think it would look too redundant to do do something like this.

._______________________________

|......................########....................|

|......................##LOGO##.....................|

|......................########....................|

|.........TM & © 2008 Konami Co., Ltd.......|

|.................Maps for Contra 4:................|

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Something like unto that. Maybe there's a better-looking way to do it. Feel to discuss/reject this idea, or ask how long it took to make that stupid visual aid.



-It would also make Ctrl+F more useful in finding maps.

-Maybe try this as Beta on only one console to see if it actually helps.

[Maxim]

Forget Ctrl+F, I wanted to use Firefox's find-as-you-type last week in the same way.

[osrevad]

The Ctrl+F thing was just a sidenote. The purpose of this is to help VGMaps.com increase its visitors through search engines.



I'm not an expert at these matter, but from what little research I've done it might help.

[JonLeung]

(If you install IE7Pro, you can get the "find-as-you-type" thing in Internet Explorer as well.  Though you might have to press Ctrl+F to start, still...)



Having game names in actual text was the reason why the directory page was made in the first place.



I had been considering this idea on the atlas pages as well...hmmm...

[Maxim]

Second-guessing search-engine bots is a tricky business. At the very least, the image ought to have its ALT text set to the game title, although arguably people browsing the maps with images disabled aren't going to enjoy them much.



However, Google doesn't like to search ALT/TITLE text (it indexes it but excludes it from search results, probably due to SEO abuse). It seems happier if you have some semantically-correct header tags (<h2> etc) containing the titles, and more so to have the right sort of things in the page title. Obviously the current static HTML site approach makes the latter difficult to achieve, but I don't see any reason not to have the former as per osrevad's suggestion.



I think it's this simple syntax, and page titles, that give my site the win for Google Images searches for "sonic maps" and "sonic the hedgehog maps".

[Will]

Are you going to try other search engines like Yahoo, Yahooligans, MSN and Altavista? I'm sure you notice certain differences in the search engines and more than one search engine might increase the chance of visitors, although personally I like to inform through Neighbouring forums that I have signed up for like popuw and Neogeoforlife.



Perhaps if you're in the mood Jon, you or someone else may want to have another shot at trying to get an article of the site on Wikipedia, I already know about the rejection but perhaps things have changed and you do have a chance to have that article accepted. Perhaps you osrevad could write an article after all your great ideas. To be honest I'm currently content with the current known existence of the site.

[osrevad]

I could help with a Wikipedia article, and I'm sure I would be able to prevent it from getting deleted. All we need is to have as much proof in the article of media coverage as we can get. Like saying how it was on The Screensavers, G4, Digg, and have a section about it's infamous April Fools jokes.



There's still a chance that they would delete it with how snooty some of them are, but If I can keep my article on Daniel Owsen from getting deleted, I think I can manage this site.



Anybody have other ideas for content? Wikipedia loves controversy. Too bad there haven't been any lawsuits (Not really). The closest thing I can think is that some guy on Slashdot thought all the maps were just stolen from other websites.

[osrevad]

"Perhaps you osrevad could write an article after all your great ideas."



That reminds me. I think the literary device of alliteration is completely underused on this website. On the front page all of the links to the various systems should be renamed like this to go along with the map theme:



Commodore Cartography

Nintendo Navigatorial

TurboGrafx Topography

GameCube Compass

Game Gear Gazetteer

Atari Archeology

Lynx Landscapes

Xbox Expanses



And so forth.

[marioman]

The alliterations sound a little cheesy.  Renaming the links to the map pages would just make the site harder to navigate.

[osrevad]

I should have made it more obvious that it was a joke. But anyone ever makes a site about the Game Gear they have to call it the Game Gear Gazetteer.