I am not a SAGE developer, and I'll probably say things that most of you know already, but I thought about this so I might as well email the list. Here is how to go about and possibly improve rankings on Google (*):
Step 1: Everyone on this list could make sure to add a link to sagemath.org on their homepage, preferably with "free", "open-source", "math" and "software" spelled out close to the link Step 2: The sagemath.org website definitely needs meta data to be added. The same keywords and more, maybe a dozen total. Google uses those. One could say this wouldn't help for a search on the single term "sage", but I am not sure: the very last step that Google performs in every search is to make sure that it has diversity in the output (make sure it talks about herbs, fly-fishing rods and software). So I would suspect the sagemath.org website suffers on a search for the single word "sage" mostly because there are already quite a lot of programs out there called "sage", and Google will only display so many in the top ten. Helping Google (through the meta) distinguish how one is different from the other might help. Step 3: Definitely buy Google ads. Who would find SAGE through Google that has never heard about it? I could imagine that someone searching for "free mathematica" would be very interested to learn about SAGE. Also you would get data out of it, since you can see which keywords seem to work with people. Finally, with Google Ads you only spend as much as you are willing to spend (I can't remember if there is a lower limit/month or what it is). That data must be worth some cash. Step 4: Go around and post on forums. For instance, if you search for "mathematica free" (without the quotes), this shows up high up, at least for me: http://www.karakas-online.de/forum/viewtopic.php?t=189 . A website, highly ranked by Google, where people seem to be interested in something exactly like SAGE. Doesn't matter how old the conversation really is (in that case it was initiated 4 years ago, but the latest post is 6 months old), it would be good for all (the forum users, Google, SAGE users and developers) if someone took the time to post a paragraph about SAGE and a link to sagemath.org on many similar posts. It would help drain some PageRank to sagemath.org. Suggestion: Writing this up, I have a question. What is the correct case? sage, Sage or SAGE? Is it standardized? For example, in the Firefox search bar that was just posted yesterday, it seems to be written Sage. On the website, it's always (?) written SAGE, except in the logo where it looks like "sage". Google picks up on those differences, sometimes, and it could be helpful. Paul (*) This is backed up: for a while I was the first hit when searching for "chocolate mousse" (without quotes) ! Unfortunately I have come down to 10th since moving to Oxford. :) On Aug 8, 9:14 am, Chris Chiasson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This is kinda off the wall: > > Mathematica, Maple, and Matlab don't have a lot of competition for > their keywords on Google, Yahoo, or MSN. > > By offering a **very low bid** on each of the names, you could > probably put a message about the SAGE open source project on each of > their names. In addition, you could do the same for SAGE's name. > > Together with the nice solid application based tutorials suggestion > mentioned in this thread, you might easily siphon off their new users > (and some old hands too). > > On Aug 7, 5:22 pm, "William Stein" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Hi Sage-Devel, > > > The SAGE downloads during the last week are as follows: > > > Linux Binary > > 42 > > OS X Binary > > 42 > > Source > > 91 > > VMware (= Windows) > > 57 > > > Total .................................. 232 > > > The number of new downloads of SAGE per week have been roughly > > constant during the last 2-3 months. The growth of SAGE is definitely > > not what I hoped for during my talk at SAGE Days 4. Does anybody > > have any good ideas about how to increase the number of people > > downloading SAGE? My hope is that this question will spark a relaxed > > but enthusiastic and positive open-ended brainstorming thread in which > > a lot of crazy ideas appear. > > > I'm laying a lot of groundwork (e.g., writing books, articles, etc.) > > and I think other people are (esp David Joyner), but there is probably > > much more that could be done. > > > Please share your thoughts! > > > -- William --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to sage-devel@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/sage-devel URLs: http://sage.scipy.org/sage/ and http://modular.math.washington.edu/sage/ -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
