[myhikesorg]

This reply is based on my own biased experience, but I run a small website to share public trail data and I've found that Google (in my opinion) artificially suppresses my site's results on really basic searches. Within Google's search console you can easily check if a page has been indexed. For example, I've published new trails/hikes in the past where Google's index claims it includes the page.. but when I search "myhikes <name of trail>", it sometimes doesn't show up - even after clicking through multiple pages! If I change my search to "site:myhikes.org <name of trail>" it'll show up... weird? I think so.

I understand how keywords can be confused by search engines and "myhikes" is fairly generic as many people might post a blog with the string "my hikes", etc. Now if I search a popular trail that Google likes to serve up regularly (i.e. "myhikes <name of popular-indexed-trail>") it comes up as 1st in the list.

Additionally, what pisses me off even more, is that I've searched for "myhikes <name of trail>" and have been served Google's own map / shitty trail tiles ranked as #1, then my site is ranked #2. Doesn't that last bit feel a bit anti-competitive? It does to me, but maybe I'm biased.

[IndexPointer]

Unrelated, but your website is down right now.

[myhikesorg]

Thanks for the reply! It's actually up and running, but if the response says "forbidden" it's likely because I blanket-block a lot of non-US IPs, AWS IP ranges, etc. because of annoying crawlers. This is bad practice, but I do it for several reasons. I've turned off some blanket-blocking for now.

If you see this comment, would you mind sharing if you were making a request from a US-based IP, VPN, or outside the US? Just curious - it'll help me understand things a bit better.

Try again if you wish :)