Finding this forum

[Joan]

It took me forever to find this forum because I never used the word "tremor". I kept thinking I had a balance problem and would google words like " balance, unsteadiness, unable to stand for long " Finally, after a very long time I noticed that my legs were shaking and called it a tremor. Bingo, I found you and my life is so much better.
My question is, Is there any way " balance problem " or any of those other words could trigger this website? I just wonder how many more people might find this site if they are as technically challenged as I am. I always ended up with websites that said I needed to have balance in my life.
Thanks Gloria
Joan

[admin]

Hi Joan,

I'm glad that you finally found us!

Unfortunately the way that search engines such as Google organize the results is a complicated process, and one that is always changing. There is a method of placing "keywords" into a homepage that in the early days of the internet worked quite well. If you placed words such as "balance, problem" you might have a chance. In todays world because of the over use of keywords and the commercial advantage of being found by Google, it's no longer that simple. Results now rely upon who links to you, what words are used in the content, page rank etc.

Not to bore you, but a glimpse at how complicated it has become:

Graduate students at Stanford University, Larry Page and Sergey Brin (the founders of Google) developed "backrub", a search engine that relied on a mathematical algorithm to rate the prominence of web pages. The number calculated by the algorithm, PageRank, is a function of the quantity and strength of inbound links.[5] PageRank estimates the likelihood that a given page will be reached by a web user who randomly surfs the web, and follows links from one page to another. In effect, this means that some links are stronger than others, as a higher PageRank page is more likely to be reached by the random surfer.

link to article

But even with this information and knowing that keywords aren't that effective anymore, we still keep the following keywords in our homepage:

"primary orthostatic tremor, orthostatic tremor, orthostatic, tremor, legs, standing, parkinsons, balance, shaky, ot resource, ot, the ot resource, movement disorder, shaky-leg syndrome, shaky-leg, unsteadiness, trembling, shaky legs syndrome, difficulty standing"

We are also listed with the major opensource directory dmoz.org which is used as a base for more of the search/directories.

We are just a tiny website in a big pond, but we have been fortunate to be listed on websites such as webmd.com, tremor.org.uk, essentialtremor.org and raredisease.org to name a few. These links also help with our ranking.

In the end the best attribute to find what you are looking for on the web is persistence and creative searching, and we're glad you didn't give up.

best regards,

jeff (admin)

[Joan]

Jeff,
Thank you for such a prompt and thoughtful answer. As you say I'm lucky I found you and I want to thank you so much for looking after this website. Keep up the good work!!
Joan