Forum name

[JohnDTraynor]

Do you think that the name of the messageboard, Unsigned City, is the best name? What it be better if the name included the region or city, i.e. Birmingham?

Also, anything titled 'Unsigned' tends to make some people wary because many things with Unsigned in the title are scam operations that try to make money out of bands. A google of "unsigned" will show this.

[WaxMan]

I agree John, I've been thinking this for a while.

However... the domain name would have to stay that way really as it would be a lot of hassle to move it to a new domain and we would lose all the links and google rating, I'll ask the Web Guru if there is any way it can be acheived. Unsignedcity isn't too bad but I do think it would be better with reference to the West Mids.

[Velvett Fogg]

John

I also mentioned this at the very conception of the the web-site.

[WaxMan]

I'm not sure if it would be possible to keep the domain name and change the title of the site to something else? may confuse people more or... I've asked Temi to have a look in. The trouble is the links all point to unsignedcity.com so if we changed that we would lose the ranking on google. It's meta tagged for terms like, Birmingham music forum, West Midlands bands etc etc so people can easily find us.

[temi]

I am not quite sure I agree that the word "unsigned" is associated with scam on the Internet, I think its strongly liked with independent musician/artist etc. Here is Wilipedia definition of unsighed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsigned , not necessarily saying wikipedia is "the authority" but its take on things is widely accepted this days.

I also did a search on Google for the word "unsigned" like JohnDTraynor suggested, here is the result: http://www.google.com/search?q=unsigned&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_enGB247GB247 the results includes BBC, Wilipedia and sites that work with unsigned band.

We can add Birmingham or West Midlands to the title of the forum if you think that will help clarifcy the area it caters for even more.

Thanks

[WaxMan]

Thanks Temi... I wouldn't have thought to do that. Will check out those searches and respond soon.

[JohnDTraynor]

I clicked the google link provided by temi and on the first page are Orange Unsigned and Surface Unsigned. Several other sites seem vague about what they offer to bands and how much it costs. The only links that aren't like that are BBC, The Unsigned Guide and wikipedia.

[WaxMan]

Here's the Google search list ranksings for various key words.

bands birmingham uk (page 1)
bands birmingham (page 1)
birmingham musicians (page 1)
birmingham music forum (number 1, page one)
birmingham gigs (page 3)
birmingham gig listings (page 1)

etc etc..

what I have noticed is that we are not well ranked for same terms but replacing Birmingham with West Midlands, could work on this.

I think it's fairly evident who we are catering for with the descriptive google search text:

"Music web directory & listings. List your band or music service for free with ... Band and Gig reviews for bands and musicians in Birmingham UK, Blogs ..."

[WaxMan]

maybe we need to alter this slightly?

[JohnDTraynor]

I googled "West midlands gigs" ... two of my pages are on page 1 ;)