Web searches for official Nazarene positions

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

I think our local church web site may be unique in our including actual text from the Church Manual on such things as current social and moral issues, the Covenant of Christian Conduct, etc.

Depending on how a Google search is worded, we end up near the top of searches for such things.

I'm guessing that its because I took time to extract the text from the Manual .pdf and enter it using the Wordpress interface, which, in turn, elevates it in the Google web crawler's formula over a .pdf.

When I run the searches that give our church such high Google results I see that some of the other high results are from websites that quote from our beliefs in critical, non-friendly ways.

I understand that publishers love .pdf because it lets them control the format of their material, but I can't help but wonder if our denominational website's not having that material posted in the most Google friendly format is allowing others to take the top positions in search results and thus, are being allowed to define what we believe for us?

[Rich Schmidt]

I'm curious what sort of Google search terms you're using...?

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

I'm curious what sort of Google search terms you're using...?

I'm using the terms of searches that lands people on our church web site.

But try it for yourself (forget about our church web site for a moment) - do a search about what Nazarenes believe about evolution or current moral and social issues or anything else and see what results people get.

[Rich Schmidt]

I'm using the terms of searches that lands people on our church web site.

But try it for yourself (forget about our church web site for a moment) - do a search about what Nazarenes believe about evolution or current moral and social issues or anything else and see what results people get.

Ah, I see.

Yes, that is interesting. And I'm sure there are things that could be done with the denomination's website to make it more Google-friendly.

So I'm curious what search terms are leading people to your website. Care to share some examples?

(I know that's not the point of your post, but it's the part that interests me just now.) :)

[G R 'Scott' Cundiff]

So I'm curious what search terms are leading people to your website. Care to share some examples?


Sure, here are some of the most recent...
nazarene morals
covenant of christian conduct
views of gambling and church of the nazarene
christian conduct covenants
church nazarene social issues
Church of the Nazarene, prayer language
current church faith issues
history of district superintendent church of the nazarene
nazarene church abortion to keep mother
nazarene church beliefs abortion

Our local website doesn't come in above nazarene.org on all of these, but on several it does. Also, in some cases, websites of those who are critical of the church are the top hits.

I'd like to see the official website optimized to rank higher in search results, and I think with the domain name that it shouldn't be all that hard to do.

[Craig Laughlin]

I'd like to see the official website optimized to rank higher in search results, and I think with the domain name that it shouldn't be all that hard to do.

The problem is not technical, it is political.