
Mormon Church website a good example of SEO - phamilton
http://kyleclouse.com/mormons-lds-church-seo/
======
SoftwareMaven
The UX team at the LDS church is second to none. They made a concerted effort
several years ago to hire the best (within certain ecclesiastical constraints)
and I think they've succeeded. I would hire any of them.

They have a strongly, user-driven dev process that brings high fidelity mock-
ups into the process well before development starts. UX works directly with
the customers (different organizations in the church) to make sure they get
what that want, leaving the program managers to ensure delivery.

The underlying CMS (which I worked on), on the other hand, is something else.
:)

~~~
cookiecaper
I'm LDS and use the Church's site frequently.

I don't like the new site.

Just yesterday they fixed one thing that bothered me about it, which is that
anytime you highlight, you would get a fade-in pop-up on the side of the text
about journaling or highlighting it. This was pretty irritating since I am in
the habit of highlighting text while I read. Now there is a constant black bar
that tells me to sign in to journal and/or highlight, which is also annoying,
but less so.

Secondly, the new layout is not fluid horizontally -- it is horizontally
centered and seems to be tailored for 1024x768 audiences. It's much worse
attempting to read scriptures or articles on my 1920x1080 screen with gobs of
excess space on the screen, now only occupied by blue gradient. The text used
to flow well and take up all available screen space due to the simple layout
of the site -- the revision not only horizontally centers everything, but even
cuts the container down, with "Share" and "Download" links on the sidebar. The
text is spaced awkwardly and it's just a great big waste of screen real
estate. I read the print version most of the time (now I use the old one since
they brought the old scriptures back), but it doesn't have footnote toggle and
the spacing is still weird; at least, however, it doesn't waste 50% of my
horizontal screen space. Loading footnotes can be tiresome, as the site makes
an AJAX call on load; I'd much prefer preloaded footnotes. The new chapter
selection page makes it harder to find the chapter you want -- you can either
scroll a lot and use the same number of clicks or click on the jump menu and
add an extra click in there.

There are some cool things about the new site, and I like the use of HTML5
font faces and other things like that, but for the most part it's less usable
for more shininess. Compare <http://scriptures.lds.org> and
<http://classic.scriptures.lds.org> and tell me which you'd rather read from.

~~~
ugh
_“There are some cool things about the new site, and I like the use of HTML5
font faces and other things like that, but for the most part it's less usable
for more shininess. Compare<http://scriptures.lds.org> and
<http://classic.scriptures.lds.org> and tell me which you'd rather read
from.”_

Clearly the first one (ignoring for now that scrolling on Safari was jerky
when I tried). The old one is fluid which is just a bad idea for long texts.
Much more than about 100 characters per line reduce readability, using all the
space on a 1920 pixel wide monitor is just a bad idea.

The new version could maybe have about one third wider lines but the seventy
or so characters are a good number for texts on the web. The new version is
beautifully typeset and has about the right line length.

Using all the available horizontal space on the web for text is nearly always
wrong.

~~~
cookiecaper
What's wrong with it? As I noted above, I clearly prefer it and have no
problems with it. I've also never heard of anyone else finding articles or
scriptures hard to read on the old site. It's not like the margins are set to
zero, there's adequate spacing in everything I see on there.

~~~
ugh
On my 1440px wide screen one line has about 200 characters (maybe 30 words) if
I maximize my browsers. It’s not so much a problem with the scriptures site
because every sentence gets a new line and every line is numbered but there
can still be sentences which go on for several lines. Your eye (and neck) has
to travel all that distance and then go back and hunt for the right next line
which is harder the further you traveled.

The guideline is to have about 100 or so characters on one line.

~~~
cookiecaper
I guess it's just a matter of preference, though I can't imagine someone
liking the wasted screen space. If a website doesn't use all my horizontal
space, I zoom it up until the screen is filled. I find vasty backgrounds that
take up 50%+ of the window distracting. I don't notice any additional neck or
eye strain, and in fact notice less because it's much easier to read words.

~~~
elblanco
I have to agree with you on this, nothing drives me more to distraction with
modern web design than the tremendous amounts of wastes space on my screen. I
do exactly what you do, zoom the page until the content fills the horizontal
width of the screen. (Though often as not, I'm zooming in to the content to
push sidebar adverts off the side of the screen like with this site
<http://www.geek.com/>). I have a good solid 6-7" of wasted horizontal screen
space ignoring the sidebar adverts, 3-4 if I add them.

All that being said, I do find that raw text that spans the screen to be
harder to read...mostly because it's easier to get lost ending a line on the
far right of my screen and returning to the far left (especially if the font
it small, something that zooming the page up doesn't seem to have as much
problem with).

I think a better middle ground are n-column layouts, like in newspapers, or
most holy books. <http://randysimons.nl/125,english/129,multi-column-text/>

------
ambitious
The backlink profile for the church site must be pretty impressive as well.
There must be thousands of LDS bloggers out there, not to mention Deseret News
etc, etc.

But yeah, in terms of site architecture, it's an impressive website.

~~~
phuff
Yeah, there is no doubt the LDS blogosphere linking back to the site gives it
a mighty boost in pagerank.

------
shawnee_
I am LDS, and it's true that there are a lot of very competent techies who are
members.

The two major factors that likely influence the high ranking are : as
mentioned. (1) the SEO is affected by links pointing at the site from external
sources like LDS bloggers, and (2) the comprehensive system of cross-
referencing that the site has implemented through its web-based scriptures.
For example:

<http://lds.org/scriptures/pgp?lang=eng>

because the LDS Church's major "message" is how the Book of Mormon is
supplementary and complementary to the Bible, as it is a record of God's
dealings with people on the American continent during "ancient" American
times.

------
js2
While working for an enterprise server management startup, I met with some of
the LDS folks and was impressed with how well they know technology and IT
across the board. <http://tech.lds.org/>

~~~
pchristensen
Their maps app is especially great - makes it so easy to find where and when
the closest meetinghouse is, anywhere in the world. <http://maps.lds.org>

------
sjs382
I think they just hire great people and trust them. The designer of the LDS
website is someone who I look up to, wrt/design:
<http://www.cameronmoll.com/portfolio/>

~~~
telemachos
Moll's comments on his porfolio page:

> _While overseeing the redesign of LDS.org, the LDS web team asked me to step
> in towards the end of the project to add my take on the visuals, resulting
> in a few comped ideas within a very short timeframe._ [1]

That sounds like he did just a bit of work late in the game. (Maybe you meant
that, but my first take was "designed the whole site" from reading your "The
designer of the LDS website.")

[1] <http://www.cameronmoll.com/portfolio/>

[2] The comparisons: <http://www.cameronmoll.com/projects/lds/>

------
thirsteh
A Google evangelist recommends following the example of a site which pushes
its page menu through uncrawlable JavaScript. I'm disappointed.

And did they just reach a high rating with their front page (which is not
impressive considering the tremendous backlinking they must have), or are all
their pages and all the terms on all their pages ranking equally well?

------
dabent
<http://mormon.org/people/> is interesting to check out. It's the LDS Church's
attempt to have it's own "social" site, and add a human face to their faith.

------
gchucky
The article's site is being pretty slow, but it's been cached at
<http://kyleclouse.com.nyud.net/mormons-lds-church-seo/>.

~~~
dabent
That's odd with it being mid week. The traffic to LDS.org is the opposite of
most sites - it actually _peaks_ on Sunday with lulls during the week. There
are two significant peaks during the year, one the first week in October, the
other the first week in April, when the church holds it's semi-annual General
Conference for all members to see.

Edit: to note that I eventually realized that it was the article, not the
LDS.org site that was slow. I'll leave my notes in place, because it's an
interesting traffic pattern to see.

~~~
pchristensen
_semi-annual General Conference for all members to see_

which is video streamed in several languages and audio streamed in many dozens
of languages. It has been getting better every year for at least 7 years now.
It's now to the point that it doesn't really matter whether I'm watching it on
my TV through satellite or over the internet.

------
juddlyon
For the SEO nerds:

lds.org 6,236 Linking Root Domains 190,722 Total Links (followed, nofollowed,
301'ing pages)

catholic.org: 4,029 Linking Root Domains 61,409 Total Links (followed,
nofollowed, 301'ing pages)

Source: SEOmoz' Open Site Explorer

------
babalicious
Yeah, a religion that sells its product door to door like Avon probably has
the SEO down, I'm telling ya.

Please. Warez/malware/porn sites all have great SEO chops too. Why again are
we applauding these particular moronic snake-oil salesmen?

------
rmc
The linked article just states "Yes the mormon church know SEO". Does anyone
know what techniques they use? How do you know they "know SEO". Details
please!

~~~
phamilton
see the embedded video

------
darkhorse
the fact that a multinational organization with revenues in the billions can
do SEO is not at all impressive to me.

furthermore, you really need to question your belief system and analytical
processes if you follow a church founded by a guy who thought he could find
treasure by looking at a rock in a hat (he was also a convicted fraudster).

~~~
js2
I flagged this for being wholly inappropriate and insulting. Denigrating
someone else's belief system is not appreciated here.

~~~
darkhorse
nothing i said was factually incorrect.

the truth hurts i guess.

it's pretty funny that you revisionist history mormon apologists will claim
that his 1826 trial records are fake, but think gold tablets sent by angels
and never seen by anyone are real. that's super consistent.

~~~
Jach
You're not being downvoted because you disagree with Mormonism or their so-
called prophet, I'm sure many of us here do as well, but because you're being
abrasive and incredibly off-topic. Save your trolling for someplace else, or
start a "Tell HN: Mormonism sucks" thread and see how far that gets you.

------
grantheaslip
I know that this comment section isn't supposed to be about the church itself,
but I can't help but be baffled by the way people are able to separate
analyzing SEO optimization from the fact that the church itself is a
fundamentally terrible organization. The church is full of racist scripture,
institutionalized sexism, and dangerous sexual repression; and has been a
major proponent of denying rights to gays. As long as they continue to have
such regressive and backward policies, I don't care how good their SEO is.

Again, it's not that I doubt their SEO prowess, but how are people able to
separate what an evil organization the LDS is from their SEO practises? I
don't want to side-track this thread too much, but I'm genuinely curious about
the way people are coming at this.

~~~
MartinCron
I don't necessarily think you're trolling, but I totally understand why you're
being downvoted.

Being able to compartmentalize and analyze different facets of something is (I
think) an important intellectual tool. Example: I can enjoy Richard Wagner's
music even though he was a demonstrably terrible person.

I'm not an LDS, and I don't like some of the things that the church does, but
I can still appreciate the things they do well.

~~~
grantheaslip
I definitely see what you're saying, and that's a very good analogy. I guess
the difference for me is that Wagner's music and anti-semitism were two mostly
separate things -- his music wasn't being used to promote his prejudices. On
the other hand, the LDS's SEO, by its very purpose, is promoting their
ideology.

I just find this casual discussion about the self-promotion of a group which
at its very core believes that friends of mine are inferior, sinful, damaged
goods because of the way that they were born a bit upsetting. Even if SEO
practise is a separate topic from their scripture, I think that this kind of
discussion attributes to them an undeserved level of legitimacy.

~~~
phuff
Hey, grantheaslip, I know this is offtopic, but I'm LDS and just fwiw, we
aren't "a group which at its very core believes that friends of mine are
inferior, sinful, damaged goods because of the way that they were born." In
fact, the LDS church doesn't think anybody is damaged goods, gay, straight or
otherwise. I have a few really good friends who are gay and LDS and would take
issue with that statement, too. That doesn't mean that we see things the same
way you do, but we wouldn't call anybody damaged goods. People are just too
good and precious to be thought of that way.

~~~
grantheaslip
To be fair, they just recently _slightly_ improved their stance on
homosexuality, but saying "the LDS church doesn't think anybody is damaged
goods" is whitewashing at best. Here's the new, improved policy:

[http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/joannabrooks/37...](http://www.religiondispatches.org/dispatches/joannabrooks/3720/homosexual_thoughts_and_feelings_not_a_sin%2C_says_new_lds_handbook/)

In short, gay people are sinners, are "subject to church discipline", but can
be forgiven if they repent for their sins (i.e. stop being gay -- i.e. stop
being themselves). Church leaders should tell them to "control unrighteous
thoughts". And they aren't allowed to attend Church. The only substantive
positive change is that church leaders are no longer told to send gay members
to counselling, _which they were up until a month ago_. How is telling someone
"you can't be a real Mormon or go to heaven unless you stop being gay" not
telling them they're damaged goods?

I don't want to say you're lying about your gay Mormon friends, but presumably
they can't actually go to church, and through some kind of Stockholm syndrome
consider themselves a member of an organisation that thinks that "Homosexual
behaviour can be forgiven through sincere repentance".

Sure, you can talk about how you think everyone is good and precious and
deserves love, but beyond platitudes, the Church's policies on homosexuality
are pretty clear.

~~~
phuff
2 quick responses and then I'll bow out. First, nobody is told they're not
allowed to attend church. In fact, people who are excommunicated from the
Mormon church are in fact _encouraged_ to keep attending so that they can come
back into what's called "full fellowship" of the church by changing their
lives to meet the standards of the church.

Secondly, there is a distinction between being gay and having sex. Mormons,
gay or straight, can't have sex outside of marriage. If a gay person has
outside of marriage they are subject to the same discipline that a straight
person who has sex outside of marriage would have. Some of my gay, believing
Mormon friends are simply chaste. Some of my gay, believeing Mormon friends
are in heterosexual marriages. They do this with the full knowledge of their
spouses, and with no hope of becoming straight, just because they feel like
it's the right thing for them.

Nobody is telling anybody they can't go to heaven or be a real Mormon unless
they stop being gay. They're saying, "be chaste." I know that's a distinction
that will probably be lost, but it's a real distinction, and a real
requirement that all Mormons try to live up to when they're not married.

All that notwithstanding, I assure you I'm not lying about my gay Mormon
friends, if you're ever in the Salt Lake area look me up, I'm sure they'd love
to meet you :) One of them is always looking for good hackers for various
projects.

~~~
grantheaslip
> First, nobody is told they're not allowed to attend church. In fact, people
> who are excommunicated from the Mormon church are in fact _encouraged_ to
> keep attending so that they can come back into what's called "full
> fellowship" of the church by changing their lives to meet the standards of
> the church.

You're probably right here. I've heard contrary, but I haven't done my
research on that, and I know there's a tonne of misinformation on both sides.

> Secondly, there is a distinction between being gay and having sex. Mormons,
> gay or straight, can't have sex outside of marriage. If a gay person has
> outside of marriage they are subject to the same discipline that a straight
> person who has sex outside of marriage would have. Some of my gay, believing
> Mormon friends are simply chaste. Some of my gay, believing Mormon friends
> are in heterosexual marriages. They do this with the full knowledge of their
> spouses, and with no hope of becoming straight, just because they feel like
> it's the right thing for them.

By "just because they feel like it's the right thing for them", I'm assuming
what you mean here is "because they have no other option". I can't imagine an
openly gay person choosing to be in a heterosexual marriage because it "feels
right". What you just said might sound perfectly natural in Salt Lake City,
but it would be an utterly ridiculous, and possibly offensive idea in, say,
Toronto.

> Nobody is telling anybody they can't go to heaven or be a real Mormon unless
> they stop being gay. They're saying, "be chaste." I know that's a
> distinction that will probably be lost, but it's a real distinction, and a
> real requirement that all Mormons try to live up to when they're not
> married.

But if you say "you can't get married to someone who's the opposite sex" and
"you can't have sex unless you're married", what you're really saying is that
gay people are never allowed to have sex with the gender they were born
attracted to. I consider that cruel and inhumane. And I'm not buying the "gay
people can go to heaven thing". The church's stated policy is that "Homosexual
behaviour violates the commandments of God". That's a pretty clear indictment.

> All that notwithstanding, I assure you I'm not lying about my gay Mormon
> friends, if you're ever in the Salt Lake area look me up, I'm sure they'd
> love to meet you :) One of them is always looking for good hackers for
> various projects.

If I'm ever in SLS, I might, I really do want to understand the thought
processes here, but I can't say that it's at the top of my list of travel
destinations, with all due respect :).

~~~
elblanco
I'm not an LDS by any possible stretch of the imagination, but I must say, SLS
is actually a really nice town in a fantastically cool and wonderfully bizarre
geographical setting. Flying into the city and over the salt marshes, is like
flying into another planet. If you can get over the heebeejeebies of flying
into LDS central it's really worth the trip. Kinda like visiting the Vatican
in Rome in a certain sense.

