dhmartens wrote:hanggliding.org tanslates uskawks to losreville.org
For many years, the person who runs hangglidng.org (Jack Axaopoulos or "sg") has had a filter in place to change any reference to "ushawks.org" into "loserville.org".
Why?
It turns out that Google ranks web sites based partially on which other sites link to that site. They further weight those links based on the popularity of the site containing the link. So a link to US Hawks from hanggliding.org is given much higher weight than a link from kitestrings.org.
I don't think Google's weighting algorithm is public information, but it's highly likely that it will severely discount any hang gliding sites that don't contain even a single link from a popular site like hanggliding.org. Jack Axaopoulos knows that, and that's why his software ensures that no one can post even a single link to the US Hawks on hanggliding.org. Jack's tactic is manipulative of Google's ranking system and it shows that he is more driven by building his empire than by providing hang gliding information to pilots who use his site.
The bottom line is that hanggliding.org will only reflect what Jack Axaopoulos will permit you to know.