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Dumb SEO attempt #60

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Dumb SEO attempt #60

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Miepee
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@Miepee Miepee commented May 8, 2024

This PR tries to do some (dumb) search engine optimization for the cases where people search for "{game} randomizer".
From looking at the results for a few games, the one websites that scored highest, always included "{game}" and "randomizer". The closer the terms were together, the higher they scored as they were more accurate to the query.
I.e

  • Bash's github page, which is literally filled with Metroid Prime Randomizer
  • various pypi and github projects such as Cave Story Randomizer v2.0, randomizer patcher for Metroid Dread etc.
  • our project's github readme: a randomizer [...] Metroid Dread. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. [sic, dont ask me why prime1 isnt there]

This lead me to notice:

  1. We dont have any page where list both "randomizer" and all our supported games. However, I feel like putting that on the main page is distracting. We could put it on the about page, but I dont think pushing our about page is a good idea? Might be worth a shot tho in a later PR, since more clicks to our page => more chance of people downloading.
  2. The pages that have "randomizer" and the games name in their main page, such as AM2R (AM2R already has a built-in randomizer) or MSR (but in the randomizer, this has been changed), do score relatively high

The solution? Include Randomizer on each game page, but in a way where it doesn't disrupt the flow of text. MDN mentions that headers get ranked higher for SEO.
So I just added it invisibly next to the game name.

Potential caveats:

  • Search engines might be smart enough to block invisibly styled elements.
  • Search engines will likely display the randomizer text, akin to this (inspector'd):
    grafik
  • Certain things that ignore CSS properties (screen readers maybe? Esoteric text browsers?) will also display the randomizer text

@Miepee Miepee requested a review from duncathan May 8, 2024 16:56
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https://developers.google.com/search/docs/essentials/spam-policies#hidden-text-and-links
oops! this is specifically against policy and will have us penalized in search results

@duncathan duncathan closed this May 8, 2024
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Miepee commented May 8, 2024

Ah whoops. Good find.

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