I said specific, not singular. [lol] They might go off topic, but it's never just "so how are you all?"

Very true. [yes]

Now I'm having to resist the urge to ask you how you are. What is the matter with me! [illgetu]

Must.... resist.... must.... I'M A LITTLE STRESSED OUT RIGHT NOW, BUT OVERALL I'M ALRIGHT, HOW ABOUT YOU?

I'M FINE, BUT I'M TIRED

I am trying to draw a bird-like creature for the first time and it's weird!![squee]

The forums here are pretty quiet. I mean, it's nice for me 'cause I'm so shy... [oops]
But I can imagine it might drive you guys crazy, hahaha.
Is it late at night where you guys are? It's about mignight here and my
brain is transitioning into late-night mode. [zzz]

Right now we are in what I call the dead zone. It's 11:10 am for me. Most of the US is asleep, this is when Mene's quietest. [yes]

Ahhh I see. I just noticed though, is it always way more "guests" than people online?
That's a lot of creepers. [wha]

*jumps at sudden loud noise*

So... how ya doin'?

There are distinct quiet times on mene. I just plop myself in a game and check my thread subscriptions if I'm caught up with real life stuffs.

Hello thread.

I've noticed that and wondered about it. It's hard to imagine that there are 200-odd unregistered people actually skimming the site at any given time...I wonder if those "guests" are search engines or something?

You got it.

Yup, they be spiders! Arachnids of the Google and Yahoo varieties!

That's rather disheartening. I hoped it was just people poking their noses in here.

Eew, creepy crawly Google sneaks. >_<

I think it would be much more disheartening if there were 200 people checking out the place at any given time, but with the same amount of Fresh Meat threads we get per day

The more spiders we have the better, actually [yes]

Spiders check the first page of any thread more than any other, and the first post the most of all. So if you've seeded the first post of your thread with keywords, and someone somewhere puts one of those words into a Google search, your thread will show up somewhere in their search results.

It may be buried 500 search pages deep and never likely to get looked at, but the more searches that show a result on Mene, the higher Mene threads end up being in subsequent searches. This is why it's good to flesh your first post out nicely, because it might just help raise our profile on Google. [yes]

Now, THAT is food for thought, Jelly. I knew search engines crawl to forums, but hadn't made the connection with Mene.

that is good to know.