I have been thinking about this, and to me it seems that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages.
We don't post doctors name's in the forum, so more traffic would't be a bad thing.
Those who try to hurt the community will do so no matter what, but may more of those who need information will find us.
I think we could expect as many as 5-10 times more visitors. Many of whom are in a terrible situation, and many can benefit greatly from reading others experiece, and posting their own...
So what do you think, should the forums be opened for Google?
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posted
No. We don't need "more traffic."
We need: - better public education, - better medical education, - more effective, efficient, affordable, accessible treatment - more healthy people to help with the above.
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posted
Well, if someone searches for e.g. testing or other lyme phrases, they wont find us. More traffic means that many more people with lyme find the forum. I don't see how anything on your list are opposites to letting people find the info they search for.
Over 90% of the phrases people search for are not single keywords like "lyme" or "borrelia". Over 90% of the phrases searched for are ones such as "lyme cyst chronic", "late lyme tick bite", "symptoms of chronic lyme after years" and thousands of other phrases such as those. Add them together and then you get over 90% of the searches.
Right now, they can't find lymenet when searching.
If we become a larger community, we'd be able to accomplish more.
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Ann-OH
Frequent Contributor (5K+ posts)
Member # 2020
posted
Here is what I get when I google "Lyme Disease" on the first page that comes up.
Lyme Disease NetworkThe Lyme Disease Network (LymeNet) is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing physicians, patients and researchers with the latest information on ... www.lymenet.org/ - Cached - Similar
posted
@Ann, with me the CDC comes up on top when searching for "Lyme disease". But that's not really the point. Lyme disease is not a sentence. And over 90% of the searches for lyme are sentences. I know this. Reaching 10% is much better than nothing, but reaching the remaining 90% would be good. They need it.
They don't find us now (the 90% doing long tail search), but they find other pages. In some cases CDC, in other cases other sites, and also many searches come out "blank" because no other site than this has info - but since this is blocked it wont be found.
Saying the site should be blocked from search engines, because there are a few people who read info from it, who are out to get people, is very much like this:
If you compare people who are sick, with a sinking ship - and the people from the sinking ship aren't allowed to get onboard our ship (LymeNet) because along with the people in desperate need for help, there might be some pirates.
Well. The pirates (those out to harm us) are going to get onboard LymeNet anyhow. And they don't do long tail search (sentances). They search for lyme disease, and they come to the forum.
Blocking the forum for those searching for phrases (long tail keywords) seems nonsensical to me.
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Keebler
Honored Contributor (25K+ posts)
Member # 12673
posted
- I just searched "lyme" and some very good patient education sites popped up in the top ten, CALDA, the LDA and LymeNet were all there.
Part of that may have to do with how many time MY computer has been to those sites.
Yeah, it would be great if ILADS, the LDA and LymeNet were to come to the surface with each new inquiry.
However, to "put it at the top" - requires payment to Google. Same with in the side margins. Those are all paid sponsors.
Otherwise, it is supposed to come up in a rotation bases - &/or based on the popularity of the site.
Even for those in supposed rotation, if you search for a drug, you will get the "official sites" - as they pay for all the possible URL domains.
It is nearly impossible to search for 3rd party reports of adverse reactions as the manufacturers buy up all domains and that is what Google searches for - URLs with the name in it.
For instance, over the years, I have saved many articles on the cautions regarding Ambien. But - only a very small portion of that material is actually available through a google search because the company bought up all the links and that crowds out 3rd party investigative reports. -
[ 07-22-2010, 04:05 PM: Message edited by: Keebler ]
Posts: 48021 | From Tree House | Registered: Jul 2007
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posted
@RtS We might not need to help more people (more traffic). But those who are ill, and searching for possible answers needs us.
And after all, we all benefit from becoming a larger community. So it's win-win.
Keebler, well, I didn't argue that LymeNet don't come up when searching for "lyme disease". I know it does. What I wrote about was that the forums isn't open for the search engines, and over 90% of the searches are longer phrases. It's like you said, your previous visits makes your result page look different. If you want to see how it looks for someone without that history, you search for "Google preview" and a tool comes up. But that's not the point.
Getting put at the top doesn't cost anything (unless you want to appear in the "sponsored search"). So, getting on top is free. But I am not talking about getting on top when searching for small phrases, I am talking about being visible at all for long tail search. And right now there have been done changes to the robots.txt, which blocks the door for Google, so people who search for phrases don't find us. With phrases I mean searches like "lyme cyst chronic", "late lyme tick bite", "symptoms of chronic lyme after years" and thousands of other phrases such as those. Add all the thousands of seldom used phrases together, and you get 90% of the searches.
[ 07-23-2010, 08:36 AM: Message edited by: peter j ]
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posted
I can't see a single reason posted as for why we should remain shut.
If there are no reasons, then I think we should open. The people searching needs us.
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onbam
Unregistered
posted
Maybe we should all just google a phrase like "lyme: the cdc lies" every day for a month. Probably get that close to the top of lyme searches.
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quote: And over 90% of the searches for lyme are sentences. I know this.
This may be getting off the topic, but how do you know this? I would think most people would type in "lyme disease". I did.
I mean, we all know that the more words you use will give way too many inaccurate results.
Posts: 797 | From New York | Registered: Feb 2008
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quote: And over 90% of the searches for lyme are sentences. I know this.
This may be getting off the topic, but how do you know this? I would think most people would type in "lyme disease". I did.
I mean, we all know that the more words you use will give way too many inaccurate results.
Well thanks for asking. First reason is because I have access to the "keywords list" for a top ranking lyme site. It shows hits, and it shows search phrases, or keywords if you will.
If you are searching for "lyme cysts last stage" then that phrase gives more accurate results (for that query) than simply typing in "lyme disease".
Adding all such seldom used phrases together, and you get over 90% of the searches. 90% don't see us when they search now.
Second reason why I know this is because it's an interest of mine, and I have "interviewed" owners of other lyme sites. The results are the same.
The conclusion is that we'd reach out to those who need us if we'd just change the robots.txt file (so we're found in Google).
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posted
As you said Peter- it is a suggestion -to be taken up with the administrators. We don't make the decisions.
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sixgoofykids
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 11141
posted
Moderators don't make these decisions either. Honestly, I didn't realize we didn't come up on a search, but I had never tried. I don't know that they are intentionally opened or closed. Are you sure they just don't come up because of the traffic levels?
You would have to bring it up with the administrator, who will never see it here.
-------------------- sixgoofykids.blogspot.com Posts: 13449 | From Ohio | Registered: Feb 2007
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Tincup
Honored Contributor (10K+ posts)
Member # 5829
posted
Peter j said.. "I can't see a single reason posted as for why we should remain shut. If there are no reasons, then I think we should open. The people searching needs us. If we become a larger community, we'd be able to accomplish more."
My opinion-
If you can personally dedicate 30-60 hours a week to being here answering the questions already being asked and find 5 or so more very Lyme-literate friends to do the same .... you will only slightly dent the incredible work load there is when it comes to answering the questions already being asked here.
Then, with many more people posting, we'd also need more moderators and more space on the board so it doesn't go down (crash), which does happen once in a while.
For LymeNet to be LymeNet ... someone has to be here to answer the endless stream of questions and it is a lot of hard work, especially for those who are already sick.
I've put in my volunteer hours for years, as have many others here ... some who've left and some who stay and work the boards faithfully and as best they can, bless their hearts.
I don't know which of our older members can give more hours to the board than is being given at this point, if any?
With a bunch of new people, what I see is many more questions (that could be easily answered elsewhere) and less personal service ....
And more wear and tear on those who already are overloaded trying to keep up ... and a higher drop out rate of givers (burn out). Those asking questions will drop out too when they aren't satisfied and can't get an answer.
I estimate only 50-150 people are here posting answers in any given time period.. and understandably, it is only when they feel up to it do they take the time and effort needed.
That's not many people posting answers considering there are nearly 20,000 LymeNet members and even more who are lurkers.
Additionally, we are NOT scientists and we are not doctors. This is a CHAT room.. an online support group only. We share things that we probably don't want popping up all over the place for no good reason... and we would hardly want our personal lives being used as advertising to get more folks here.
Those wanting serious scientific information in a timely fashion would probably be better off going to an official site... and there are tons of them.
I don't think we should compete with other sites for more business ... but if folks do find us and can get help, great news for all.
I can see what you mean with newbies vs Lyme-literate members. I think there's going to be a good mix when it comes more people. Most likely it would be a higher newbie percent than what we have now. But after a while the newbies become more litterate themselves.
Many of the people searching will find what they were looking for just by reading the thread they came to when Googleing. But a chunk of them will become members.
We aren't scientists or doctors. We are a messange board, and people coming to this site can see that we are a message board. But what I do think is that the info here is better than what you can find many other places. And in many cases it's not available elsewhere. Especially for "long tail" search. When people google it's for the most part lyme related phrases we're found on. So if someone is concerned about their privacy, I'd say the same concern should be there when unregistered members are clicking their posts.
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posted
Peter, The biggest problem i see is that we'd all have to stop naming products that work well for us and/or those specific products that didn't click with our symptoms. We would no longer be free to share ideas without becoming pawns of big pharma.
imho, the second biggest problem is the workload issue. With LymeNet's all-volunteer and mostly ill workforce, quality would suffer for quantity.
I sense you are passionate about increasing public awareness of chronic LD and improving patient access to sound scientific info on prevention and treatment. I am as well.
imho, what is most needed in terms of this plague is a focused public education & outreach effort. LymeNet is not the forum for that now.
With your experience, PeterJ, i urge you to work with the quality, established LL support orgs to put together grant proposals to fund public education & outreach efforts nationwide.
Or, on a smaller scale, you could volunteer to update the ILADS website, adding more links there to current, pertinent research articles.
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You guessed right that I am passionate about public education. I am sure you are it too. I am using the energy I have on voulenteer work for this cause.
Both on public education and on trying to shift the way the research is being done, pointing out the obvious flaws in logic of the interpretion of the major treatment and diagnostic defining studies, such as: The fact that 4 weeks of ceftriaxone monotheraphy doesn't cure anyone doesn't mean that "antibiotics" don't work. The fact that the ELISA often is somewhat sensitive a month or so after a EM doesn't mean it is sensitive in late stage lyme. ...and the list goes on.
If we'd open up, then those who wonder about things such as "joint pain and brain fog borrelia", "fatigue and visions problems could it be lyme" and thousands of other queries would find us. I don't see how that would be any different in terms of the freedom of debate, whether it be products, describing our illness or anything else. The difference would be that instead of finding text now by typing lyme forum, and reading threads, they could type info into Google and find us.
But what you're writing about work load issues could become a real challenge for a while. I guess it would "normalize" after a while, because the newbies would learn, and some would become active in answering. But I think there would be a intermediate period where there is a disproportion. I can appreciate that concern. Personally I weigh the benefit higher than the cost, but respect that you see it differently.
I am not sure what you mean with becoming pawns of big pharma [if opening up]. I'd appreciate it if you could examplify that.
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