Newsletter/201101


 * Introduction

This is where the text of the second newsletter will be, expanding on the first issue.

Post-move checklist

 * This draft draws only on experience moving one wiki. Hands-on howtos, more different perspectives, better writing, and a better page title are needed.

After setting up your new wiki, the real work promoting it begins. Some pitfalls are:


 * Spreading the word
 * Announce the move to your wiki users. Seek out the various subcommunities - never underestimate how important marketing is.


 * Getting links
 * Almost everybody finds new places by Google, and backlinks are the only way to rank well. The wikia.com domain is especially hard to beat.
 * The most visible places, such as wikis, forums, and social media, will often use rel="nofollow" links, which are worthless. On wikis, the easiest way around this is to ask to be added to their interwiki map, and to add the other moved wikis to your interwiki map. See Talk:Moved_wikis.
 * You really need to trawl the internet for links to your old site, and politely ask the site owners to update. This works best if you provide a complete list of stale links, and custom-tailor the request for each site. Yahoo site explorer and recent changes on Google help find stale backlinks. SEOmoz explains how to request links.


 * Make it easy to login
 * Some spamtraps (define please) turn away anybody who doesn't know your website's content already. Every wiki needs a constant influx of new editors because the old editors will eventually lose interest. Waiting (e.g. for approval), unclear instructions, or unfindable "passphrases" are especially bad for the future of your wiki.