# Getting search engines to cover website forums... **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 21, 2011, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-search-engines-to-cover-website-forums/579193 "2011-04-21T07:03:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-search-engines-to-cover-website-forums/579193/1 "2011-04-21T07:03:35Z")
A friend hosts a discussion forum & needs to know how to get search engines to pick up on stuff posted in her forum. They pick up her business site just fine but not the forum connected to it. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-search-engines-to-cover-website-forums/579193/2 "2011-04-21T07:15:52Z")
The best way is to have a [Google sitemap](http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=156184&from=40318&rd=1) of the website Normally Googlebot will follow the links but this various things and sometimes the Googlebot won’t like the way the site is set up, so your Google Sitemap is the best way ---
**Author:** ![fubbleskag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fubbleskag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fubbleskag)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2011, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-search-engines-to-cover-website-forums/579193/3 "2011-04-21T11:05:14Z")
Also make sure that the forum software isn’t throwing out any noindex meta tags. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-search-engines-to-cover-website-forums/579193/4 "2011-04-22T17:44:57Z")
> [@fubbleskag](#): > > Also make sure that the forum software isn’t throwing out any noindex meta tags. How do I do that? ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2011, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-search-engines-to-cover-website-forums/579193/5 "2011-04-22T19:14:06Z")
Check the actual rendered text coming out of the forum pages using the “view source” option of a browser. Also, have the website owner check all the configuration settings of their forum software. There ought to be a configuration section covering which meta tags to generate. naturally, each brand of forum softare does this differently. Last of all, if she’s not a big & well-connected site, Google may plan to hit it only every 8 (WAG) weeks or so. If so, it won’t appear that the forum is being indexed when in fact it’s just not being indexed very aggressively. Heck, for all I know they plan to get back to most low-priority pages only once every couple of years. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2011, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-search-engines-to-cover-website-forums/579193/6 "2011-04-25T12:49:44Z")
I did find that Google has been paying some attention to the forum. I also did set up a sitemap. Thanks! ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2011, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/getting-search-engines-to-cover-website-forums/579193/7 "2011-04-26T13:53:40Z")
So now we’ve read about meta engines as well as search engines. We’ve also made sure to get the site registered with Yahoo & Bing. MSN seems to just use Bing. What other search engines should we focus on? It seems a lot of the older ones like Netscape & AltaVista are now part of Google, Yahoo, etc. Should we still register on those? Thanks for any further help here.