[rottingroom]

both forums are ignoring G+.

Incorrect.

Having a profile won't do anything. You must engage.

[rottingroom]

Look, the typical scenario works like this:

I just heard that there are people who believe the world is flat. I'm going to go Google that.

This is how people learn about things. Sure, people do use the facebook search box for a group but that doesn't happen unless they have already established an interest in that topic. They most likely already know about the society in that case. SEO can lead you to the forums based on your interest of flat earth in general.

Incorrect.  This is how people learn about things they already know about.  One can't google "flat earth society" if they've never heard of it.

what makes you think they need to google "flat earth society"?

I didn't say that.

If you turn on incognito mode and search for "is the earth flat" then the old society comes up as the 5th result while the new one appears half way down the second page. This is a pretty big deal for this site. I've offered a way to fix that and you're here trying to argue that facebook likes are valuable to someone other than click farms.

No.  You argued that the 4k likes on our Facebook page didn't mean anything about our activity or Facebook exposure.  Fixing the search engine stuff is a completely different matter irrelevant to all of Facebook.  Simply allowing google spider bots on our forum, putting in key words on each page's header, and altering our domain name to have flatearth in it would fix our ranking.

I still think Facebook likes are pointless. Search got wrapped into it because you tried to make the case that Facebook likes had an effect on SEO. They might on bing, but not on Google and that is what people use.

[Pete Svarrior]

You must engage.

And we have been. Again, you're probably not seeing the full picture, but you're eager to assume.

[rooster]

Terrible thread.

[rottingroom]

You must engage.

And we have been. Again, you're probably not seeing the full picture, but you're eager to assume.

Eager to assume what? My assumption is that you are listed lower than the old site. I'm trying to help but it's coming off as criticism so everyone is being defensive. Currently, I'm trying to figure out how to get your G+ page on to the right column of a Google search result. There are ton of SEO experts available on G+ that know a lot about this stuff.

[xasop]

Terrible thread.

I disagree. This is the best one-sided debate I've read since sokarul was last around.

[rottingroom]

I find it to be a strange thread. I feel like I've lost the debate even though it's been demonstrated that I am right about the OP.

[DuckDodgers]

PP made this point from the start but it seems you may have glossed over it, if old site and new site both suffer from click farms, let's go ridiculous and say 50%, is 50% of 1k suddenly more than 50% of 4k?  When you factor in click farms, factor them in for both and this site's FB page is still more popular than the old site's FB page.

[Pete Svarrior]

I feel like I've lost the debate even though it's been demonstrated that I am right about the OP.

Yeah, there's a difference between making a number of valid statements and presenting a coherent and comprehensive point.

[rottingroom]

PP made this point from the start but it seems you may have glossed over it, if old site and new site both suffer from click farms, let's go ridiculous and say 50%, is 50% of 1k suddenly more than 50% of 4k?  When you factor in click farms, factor them in for both and this site's FB page is still more popular than the old site's FB page.

I did address this when I said that newer pages are more susceptible to farming.