Getting this new site to appear in searches (599 views)

Unfortunately we cannot legally use Cooking Light in our Forum identification tags as that brand/trademark belongs to Cooking Light/Time Inc. That would surely get us in trouble. We can, however, mention them in our posts. That will help, but not a great deal. The only other way is to pay big bucks to get a Google Adwords account that would help drive searches to us. We are stuck.

*saves recipe to MasterCook*

Boy, that Cooking Light recipe looks good! Did you make this Cooking Light recipe? Gee, if we had a Cooking Light Bulletin Board, we could post it there. All we have is this Cooking Light community of healthy-cooking aficionados; maybe someone will post a review. 



Being smart-alecky, of course. But seriously--this recipe looks great; thanks for using it as your example. I may make it this weekend.

I had a Cooking Light recipe that I am not sure that I ever reviewed. It was some kind of marbled, salted, brownie and was from an early version of Cooking Light magazine. Back when I used to post recipes over at the Cooking Light bulletin board (or was it called the Cooking Light message board?) you might find it. In the meantime, I will look for it in my Mastercook cookbooks (I made a bunch of Cooking Light cookbooks there).

Valchemist is a name that I bet lots of folks search for. She was such a popular poster over at the Cooking Light boards. Some posters from there had unusual names, too, like Browneye. I wonder if their names might help with searches. Never know.

And I dunno, I bet CLBB gets some searches, too. I notice that many old friends use that term.

I also notice, while going back though Cooking Light archives that many of members we have lost touch with use Mastercook. In fact, I'm rather astounded to only now discover this fact.

EDITING TO ADD: FYI - I just made a post at the Mastercook Discussion Group (doh, why didn't I think about doing that sooner) about Cooking Light forum being closed down and gave the url. Hopefully, some old-time and some new friends will see the post and go look into CLBB and get all the info they need there. (Later I will, when it's really gone, post about this new forum.)

I know. The rational part of my brain says "geez; it's just an online site--what's the big deal?" But the emotional part says, "CLBB radically altered my cooking life & provided tons of interesting non-cooking chat; I feel like I've lost an out-of-town friend."

The cool things are that a) we have HERE! from now on, yay!, and 2) in searching/saving tons of CLBB community recipes, I've found several that I want to make Right Now. So even in its demise, the CLBB inspired me to try to be creative.

Now that I'm done saving stuff, though, it'll feel good to close the laptop & go do other things for awhile . . . 

Are we listed in the ProBoards Forum directory?

www.proboards.com/getting-started/forum-directory

Google search today - hit on page 4

It sounds like a lot of folks have heard through the grapevine or on Facebook. Others are trying to be reached, but haven't been around and/or have changed email addresses over the years. I will try to type out Cooking Light and Cooking Light Community at least some of the time -- I have used CL and CLBB for so long that it is automatic. I think that some of the recpe titles will help too. Perhaps we shoud repost some of the most notorious recipes or rekindle some of the thread topics so they would show up in a search -- things like Psycho Chicken, Jewel's Garlicky Green Beans, Drive Your Neighbors Nuts Chicken, Lindrusso's Magnificent Marinara (I made that one and my son's didn't like it- can you imagine? They were kids. I need to make it again.)

I mean I need to try Lindrusso's Magnificent Marinara, the one that was posted on the Cooking Light Community board, rocked the Cooking Light Belletin Board and was later published (or a variation of) in Cooking Light Magazine.

Cookiee, I don't think we lost the CLBB due to decreaseed activity.  If anything, I think the fact that activity picked up may have caught their attention.  I was thinking this past week, and in light of events and hacks the world over, I think the most likely scenario might have had to do with cyber security and the fact that they had largely ignored the forum for some time.  It had been spammed to near death and I'm sure it was hacked a few times.  With Time owning CL and SL, the boards may have given avenues for hackers to gain access to larger data banks.  Maybe that "bandwidth" excuse had something to do with security.  I don't know enough to make a more specific guess, but that seems like a logical progression.   I had bookmarked the SL community board and checked it after CL went down, then deleted the bookmark.  I tried to find it last night and got error messages.  I am not certain since I didn't save the bookmark, but I thinkk the SL site may have gone down without any notice. At least we had some.

Yep, as I understand it, there are two ways to get to the top of a search list -- money and raw popularity.

You mean Lindrusso's Magnificent Marinara that used to be found on the Cooking Light Community Bulleting Board where we talked about Great Food and Other Stuff can now be found on the Great Food Free Forum now that Cooking Light and Time shut down the CLBB? Great! We didn't lose it!

I think security makes sense -- from what you saw, even more so. I wondered if the effort to increase activity made it worse or caught their attentions. We will never know, and it doesn't matter now. Collectively, we have mor e recipes than we will ever prepare and there will always be more, but the conversations, comments, tips and such. I am already fnding myself missing that. I may be making a couple of tiered cakes later this fall --- one for a joint birthday for 3 girls and one for a wedding. I learned about the marhmallow fondant here - I mean on the Cooking Light Bulletin Board,  and have made it, but I was thinking I should read over the tips. They aren't there......

Yesterday, I experimented by posting this header along with a recipe. Only time will tell when google starts picking up out "bait"!

"This recipe was once posted on the former Cooking Light members bulletin board, which no longer exists. The "CLBB" was permanently closed in September."

Thanks; I would love that recipe! Sounds less cloying sweet than some.

Cookieee, what's really amazing is that when I pull up my name in a Google search, the links still work! I guess if CLBB isn't going to archive the boards, they haven't killed them off yet. I've seen all those links over here but just assumed they weren't working any more.