[valkyry1]

I hit Freeper threads all the time thru google and I’m not even looking for the FR when I hit them!

[weegee]

You can search freerepublic threads on Google. You can probably find this very thread by wording searching one of the phrases after about 5 minutes of posting.

site:www.freerepublic.com and then your search terms.

HOWEVER, while Google finds current FR threads, it sucks now it finding 4 year old threads. They won’t match. You need to use Yahoo or something else for older FR content.

And I do use them because I cite old articles/threads and controversies in some postings.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

It gets indexed. Rather quickly actually. Give it a few minutes and then click the link

[MediaMole]

Do a search on your username. You will find a bunch of stuff.

I often find the FR thread as one of the top results when I search for a news story.

[smokingfrog]

NowApproachingMidnight

search term site:freerepublic.com

[martin_fierro]

I’ve found Google to work a damnsight better than FR’s own search feature.

[TheWasteLand]

I get FR hits quite often in google searches.

[Doohickey]

Search terms like “pr0n”, “chickswithd*cks”, “grannytrannies”, etc. aren’t likely to yield FreeRepublic results.

[LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget]

OK, it has been indexed. pretty damned quick IMHO

[NonValueAdded]

Google indexes FR threads almost instantly. They are very much aware of FR and there is no lockpout. Unless it is recent. Leave a spelling error like lockpout, post it as a response, then Google it a minute later. You should see it.

Also, you can go to advanced search and tell it you want to ONLY search www.freerepublic.com. I will do that to find a thread I remember reading.

[mnehring]

I hit FR through Google searches all the time. The challenge with it being high in the ratings is that Google indexes ratings based on the number of links to a page. For example, if a news article has a story on McCain, FR would link to that article, which would index the source article higher, but, because FR is not linked to, it isn’t indexed higher.

If you want to push FR higher in ratings, link to threads as much as possible outside FR.

[Sherman Logan]

Google “sherman logan” and my FR posts and articles pop up as numbers 13 and 14.

[JSteff]

For 5+ years I was the Internet Coordinator for a HUMMER dealer here in PA. They started out in most searches for HUMMER'S in PA horribly.

After about 1.5 years I got them to the first HUMMER dealer showing all searches done with an area modifier (PA, Penna, etc)(example; HUMMER H2 PA). All pages support each other in some way. I have assisted other businesses to do the same thing.

It still mainly comes down to text and continuity of the site. If it all supports the rest it ends up ranking higher. FR shows up great when doing test searches. I am not sure if google ranks them as a blog but FR usually displays on the first page, if not the top five, when doing content searches.

It would take pages of the way the search engines work to explain how alt tags, meta tags, etc work. The basics still trump everything else. Title, meta tags, description, text are still at large part of what determines ranking.

One of the founders of google when interviewed a few years ago talked about the “democratic idea” of the www. Last Nov. or Dec. google apparently changed the way things like pictures and graphics affected rankings. They allowed more weight to be given to those elements.

FR has plenty of both content and graphics. Seemingly text with graphics can work nearly as well as alt tags. It is working for FR right now how ever they are ranking them.

[qam1]

Sad to say, I often have to use Google to find old Freerepublic threads because Freerepublic's new search is actually worse than Windows Vista's new search

For instance, Recently I was searching for the old thread "Global Warming Cartoons."

Using Freerepublic's search, nothing comes up, all blanks

Using Google, without even mentioning Freerepublic it's the 5th choice

[NotchJohnson]

Google usually has some cartoon if it is a special day. The Olypics have something on the home page, hearts for Valentines but there is nothing for 9/11 today. Telling.

[LibertyRocks]

I know others have mentioned this, but I routinely run across FreeRepublic sites in my Google Searches. In fact, they appear VERY quickly in the results. If for instance, I’m looking for information on a certain subject to add to a thread, or cite something I will usually see at least one result tied to the thread I’m responding to. I’ve actually been quite surprised at how quickly they are indexed.

If you want to see exactly how many pages are in Google’s Search Results for FreeRepublic simply type in the name in the search box. I just did that and Google came back stating they had over 6 MILLION results. (Granted, these are not ALL from FReeRepublic.com itself, but I’d bet the majority are...). See the search result here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&pwst=1&sa=X&oi=spell&resnum=1&ct=result&cd=1&q=freerepublic.com&spell=1

By the way, I also did a search using the term: “ site:www.FreeRepublic.com “ and this very thread was the SECOND result! LOL See the results here: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Site%3Awww.freerepublic.com&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=