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We need to be concerned about new users who find the way to us, even more so as we still are in beta and visits are declining. One way would be to make sure that questions and answers can be found when googling a topic.

This however can only be done if we take care to let the robots know what keywords are relevant.

How would questions have to be asked then? What do we need to add to our questions and answers to improve our placement in search result?

Is appropriate tagging relevant to this? Would it be a good idea to edit tags and questions to improve our presence?

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    First, someone should tell us what are the factors that make a better search result, should we really interfere? – user508 Jul 19 '11 at 13:33
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    I think by linking and getting linked to the relevancy of our site will rise automatically (currently the PageRank of main is 0/10 while EL&U has 5/10 and SO has 6/10). – musiKk Jul 22 '11 at 13:45
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Let me say: just keep doing what we are doing. We already have a nice core community built up here and hopefully this will improve if we keep that core strong. The only problem is running out of questions. Also, many people here are too far advanced to help the hapless learner who sticks "German language HELP!!!" in google. To solve this problem, I suggest that experienced users sometimes ask a question they know the answer to that they think is a key step (Klapppunkt) in developing further understanding, or overcoming a classically tricky obstacle.

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  • This is a very good point. Learners may feel invited when they see thera are also basic questions here. – Takkat Jul 20 '11 at 8:27
  • @Glen: You might ask a question on the main site what one can one instead of Klapppunkt, which I've never heard in my life :-) – Hendrik Vogt Jul 20 '11 at 9:39
  • @Hendrik Ha ha! I learnt that word from a german colleague who uses it all the time for key steps in proofs. – Glen Wheeler Jul 20 '11 at 10:26
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    @Glen: Now I got it! I'm pretty sure he says Knackpunkt! – Hendrik Vogt Jul 20 '11 at 10:35
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    @Glen: Wow, you are totally right! He was just too polite to correct me beforehand. This website is truly something special :). – Glen Wheeler Jul 20 '11 at 10:39
  • I clicked "this is a great comment" for the latter part of it, no idea about the rest ! – user508 Jul 20 '11 at 19:07
  • @Glen: Congratulations. This site is first when googling for Klapppunkt (which I can't find in Duden, Wiktionary... maybe it's Klapp-Punkt?). – musiKk Jul 22 '11 at 12:12
  • @Hendrik I wrote (at)Glen, ups :) – Glen Wheeler Jul 22 '11 at 12:36
  • @musiKk Perhaps someone else will mis-hear Knackpunkt like me and be drawn into this place as a result. I will not edit :). – Glen Wheeler Jul 22 '11 at 12:37
  • @Glen: I had already wondered that you don't reply :-) and probably I'm just not as polite as your collegue. – Hendrik Vogt Jul 22 '11 at 12:51
  • @Glen: Ah, indeed. There are a lot of hits for Klapp-Punkt, that's why I thought it might be meant. Didn't have time to investigate further though. – musiKk Jul 22 '11 at 13:40
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Tags are important!

By using this question I did a test on how google search result may be affected by tags used:

  • searching Google for: german manual Du: no result on first 10 pages
  • searching Google for: german manual Du translation: question appeared on page 3
  • searching Google for: german manual Du salutation: question appeared on page 3

This implies that the tags we use do influnece how our questions are listed in google search results. We therefore may need to take much more care on tags if we want our questions (and answers) to be found. We also should use tags that are relevant keywords for googling.

This may also imlpy hat people having enough reputation to do so should retag question more often with special respect to this.

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Im no SEO expert, but to promote this site further from a SEO pov you have to differ between Google DE/ENG and esp. ger/eng native speakers imho.

German users will mostly have Google set up for DE results, english for ENG. So german native speakers will likely get much worse rank for SE than eng., as it is more unknown there (look at the regions) and there is heavy competition with german language forums. There are not many german programmers coming from other SE sites probably with high interest in german language questions...Improving the rank of Google DE results looks pretty tricky to me.

Do you want to promote this site on english speakers AND/OR germans? SE seems to be much more popular in ENG web then GER. I saw here some asking questions in German, i think thats ok, but maybe in the BETA stadium it would be better to ask questions only in english? But im not sure about this. English guys starting to learn German might feel a bit lost and intimidated to ask "stupid/very simple" questions, but thats imo the way to make the audience grow here in BETA. Of course you need good native speakers here who give high quality answers, but imo germans are not the main audience, as hard to recruit and there are enough german forums.

Concerning english users i would promote this site in eng. philosophy forums. There probably often german language questions arise and these forums are good frequented.

I think some SE sites have the fundamental problem that they run out of good questions as the topics are not evolving in time unlike e.g. physics or programming knowledge & technology.

Is there a threat concerning the site launching process on SE, that this site will get closed? Or does a site just have to survice the BETA, can someone give a link plz. explaining the launching process?

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    As much as I think it may be o.k. to ask questions aimed at an advanced or native audience in German, I also agree that questions for a wider audience may be better asked in English for the reasons you gave. I also agree that we have very few "simple" questions here - we should work on that indeed. – Takkat Jul 19 '11 at 16:54
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    Concerning Google search options I think that most if not all Germans have set it to find both, German and English results (they won't get much otherwise). In addition, some questions here do appear quite on top even when searching in Germany for German expressions and when Google is set up to prefer German language results. The question is how to make them more. – Takkat Jul 19 '11 at 16:55
  • @Takkat to add further, if you look what non-IT sites are successful on SE, it are mostly IT related or hobbys, programmers are dealing with (physics, music, latex...). German language is not really a hobby. Maybe for BETA a good way would be to ask more programming related questions here e.g. correct translation of english help files, manuals, tutorials... – Hauser Jul 19 '11 at 17:31
  • You will just make it worse by that solution, the present users will leave the site.. That's exactly what they were trying to get rid of on EL&U. – user508 Jul 19 '11 at 19:29
  • @gigili True and makes a bit sense. But still i believe that you cant adopt simply the succesful principles/techniques from EL&U on this site. Many international non native & native english speaking programmers are on SE. But i dont think many advanced german speaking foreign users are here, so translating their apps, software to correct german might imo at least a option one should care about!? Or would you want to close/downvote those questions, as they tend to drive away experts with the experience on EL&U? – Hauser Jul 19 '11 at 20:13
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    The fundamental difference to here is IMHO, it will get very hard to attract native german speaking NON-programmers to this site... – Hauser Jul 19 '11 at 20:13
  • What if we made it the community standard for bilingual users to consistently translate any questions asked in German, so that eventually all our questions have English text too? – Arthaey Feb 7 '12 at 23:13

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