Peter N

Google keep their systems a well gaurded secret but a couple oif things are known.

They rate according to the number of searches and clicks a site gets along with - and probably more importantly - the number of sites that link to the site in question. This second criteria is what ensures that a search for Ford gets Ford Motor Company at the top of the list event if Harrison Ford makes another Indianna Jones movie.

There is also an "x" factor that Google will not reveal and which they say is regularly changed.

It's in the nature of this forum to contain hundreds of links off-site and only a few internal links while other sites like The Register will rarely lonj back to this one. It's because of this that forums discussing external matters (as opposed to, say a TV manufacturer's forum) very rarely rise in the Google placings.

It is extremely unlikely that you can promote a forum in this way but you may get some results by always visiting this forum thread via a Google search rather than coming here directly or via a bookmark. Even then I suspect that it will not make enough difference as you would have to be searching for "Phorm" or "Webwise" everytime and I suspect that there simply aren't enough hours in the day to make it possible.

Also bear in mind that Google is known to contain routines specifically designed to prevent this sort of rank-jumping.