Cyber Missionary Testimonial Pages

[Marcel Demas-p40]

Wow, thanks for all that great feedback, this is a very responsive board compared to most I've stopped at.

Ok, lots of good points taken. I'm backing off the idea of creating thousands of additional websites, and particularly my suggestion that the Church be involved with such a creation.

I disagree that we needn't be concerned about anti-Mormon sites though I don't know what to do about it other than beat them to the top of search engines. It's much more difficult to teach the truth to people who have already formed strong negative opinions from exposure to massive amounts of misinformation about the Saints on and off the web.

I think it would be useful to unofficially get the word out perhaps on the lds.net board at least that using the word "Mormon" online as much as possible could be useful.

I agree that every private site owned by Latter-day Saints that has an appropriate religious component should link to www.mormon.org. I frequently encourage linking to that site in my posts and on my lds1.org discussion board.

I totally agree that the teaching should be done on the official websites. LDS cyber missionaries should be encouraged to help move people to those sites.

Please do not underestimate the quality of the members who are already online, it's not only grads of Church colleges and universities that can effectively handle cyber missionary work. The Holy Spirit is in it, that I witness day after exciting day.

I think that mormon.org in particular is hugely effective for nonmembers newly exposed to LDS beliefs. That site can easily be added to or modified as circumstances change and inspiration and opportunities present.

Elder Ballard gave several talks and the July Ensign also encouraged members to participate in what I like to call "cyber missionary" work. It's not just a passing mention, I think missionary work online is here to stay. We are likely to hear from more of the Senior Brethren as additional witnesses to the importance of cyber space as a place to reach and teach the gospel to every nation, kindred, tongue, and people, in their own language. I think there will be emerging opportunities for possibly many career paths in all things cyber missionary. Now may be a time to start giving that some thought and seek for inspiration how to best get this work moving at least as well as missionary work is moving in the real world. (Just my thoughts.)

I think encouraging members who routinely use the internet to always link to mormon.org in signature lines and appropriate places should be the official focus for cyber missionary work at this time while better and better tools are envisioned and designed to further online missionary work, and until official calls and responsibilities begin to be extended by the Brethren if they choose to organize the work and move in that direction.

It's a great time to be alive brothers and sisters. I think it may be time for a lot of those sometimes sleepy high priests who already have computers and online skills to voluntariily tithe a portion of their online time to cyber missionary work. The virtual fields are already white, I know, I've been there!

[rmrichesjr]

...
I disagree that we needn't be concerned about anti-Mormon sites though I don't know what to do about it other than beat them to the top of search engines. It's much more difficult to teach the truth to people who have already formed strong negative opinions from exposure to massive amounts of misinformation about the Saints on and off the web.

Agreed that it is difficult to unteach what the anti- groups throw around. A large part of that problem is that so many of the people with those negative opinions fail to recognize that information from an opposition group is not going to be balanced or necessarily accurate. It's like getting information about the potential benefits of eating blueberries from the guy who is selling raspberries.

I think it would be useful to unofficially get the word out perhaps on the lds.net board at least that using the word "Mormon" online as much as possible could be useful.

...

At the risk of getting a little away from the technology focus of the forum, I have been told that President Benson instructed Church members to avoid calling ourselves "Mormons" and stay with "LDS" and the like. Finding a reference to that alleged instruction is likely to be difficult. It might be good to check whether such an instruction was made and might still be in effect before making too much use of the word "Mormon". ... just a thought.

[lajackson]

I have been told that President Benson instructed Church members to avoid calling ourselves "Mormons" and stay with "LDS" and the like. Finding a reference to that alleged instruction is likely to be difficult. It might be good to check whether such an instruction was made and might still be in effect before making too much use of the word "Mormon". ... just a thought.

The LDS Newsroom Style Guide has a brief, but not very thorough discussion about this subject. It will not answer the question, though.

Will including a site link to mormons.org have the same effect as using the word Mormon on the page? If so, that might help fill the bill. Just a thought.

[Marcel Demas-p40]

The LDS Newsroom Style Guide has a brief, but not very thorough discussion about this subject. It will not answer the question, though.

Will including a site link to mormons.org have the same effect as using the word Mormon on the page? If so, that might help fill the bill. Just a thought.

I hope your question was directed to the technical people and everyone isn't holding their breath for me to be the next to post in this hugely interesting thread.

I too would like to know if a link to mormon.org would work just as well as the word "mormon" to increase the possibility of an LDS friendly site appearing in the top results of a "mormons" google.

From a technical point of view, with the objective being to overwhelm anti-Mormon sites in search engines, is the best thing LDS bloggers and writers can do right now to include a link to mormon.org in everything they write?

[mkmurray]

I hope your question was directed to the technical people and everyone isn't holding their breath for me to be the next to post in this hugely interesting thread.

I too would like to know if a link to mormon.org would work just as well as the word "mormon" to increase the possibility of an LDS friendly site appearing in the top results of a "mormons" google.

From a technical point of view, with the objective being to overwhelm anti-Mormon sites in search engines, is the best thing LDS bloggers and writers can do right now to include a link to mormon.org in everything they write?

I believe most search engines would award a search result "high points" if the actual URL of the page has the search term inside of it.

[thrushmk]

I think it would work.

[Marcel Demas-p40]

I was informed today that my former screen name no longer complies with board rules so it has been changed to my real name Marcel Demas. I don't know how to change the name I used to use when it appears in quotes though.

What I like to refer to as "cyber missionary" work is accelerating with many new blogs and threads on discussion boards focused on our religious beliefs and practices. "Ask a Mormon" threads draw a lot of interest. One I started on the Sean Hannity board drew about 5,000 posts and had 80,000 views before it settled into the sunset.

I was going to talk about cyber missionary work to my high priests group a few weeks ago but realized that I wouldn't have time to explain what it was all about or how to get started. So I started a new board designed to fill that spot. I'm not sure if I am allowed to write that here but my talk to the high priests can now conclude with a simple: "Just say go to LDS1.org."

[russellhltn]

I don't know how to change the name I used to use when it appears in quotes though.

Thanks for pointing that out. I think we've cleaned that up. Did we miss any?

[JamesAnderson]

SEO people will tell you the best thing to do with domains on the corporate level is to have a few major domains, probably countable under 20 or so, for a large company. If alot of branding is going on, then maybe one or two for the branding of any given product and so forth. Any larger number is often considered by SEO experts to be search engine spamming.

Spammers, and search engine cheats alike, like to set up scads of redirector domains that go to the same site. Often the unscrupulous do this so the target site doesn't get knocked out. That is why it is so important to follow the best practices mentioned in the first paragraph as it is.

So with that in mind, the Church has done extremely well in that they have a few big sites, like mormon.org, lds.org, familysearch.org, etc., and where they had to do more, did so in a very prudent way. That has immeasurably helped the cause, and is why the Church's sites come up to the top in most search results.

We also have many more hits than others, simply because we follow these best practices. And it will serve us well long into the future to boot.

This also helps the average member when doing missionary work. All current pass-along cards have mormon.org just below the official name of the Church since it is best for those who have basic questions or need general information on what the Church is, what we believe, etc. lds.org is largely more 'in-depth', and has been used by nonmembers positively in media interviews of late. And lds.org's content is more geared towards the active member, although you could certainly link to content from it to better explain our beliefs, like the articles at jesuschrist.lds.org

[nutterb]

For what it's worth, many search engines, following Google's lead, have incorporated into their search algorithms a component that ranks websites based on how many sites link to it. That is, the algorithm assumes that if a site is linked to many times, it must be more relevant than a similar site with few links to it. So, if members of the Church really want to help increase the search rankings of the Church websites, simply providing links to Church websites on their personal blogs and web pages would make quite a contribution.

I would be extremely hesitant to encourage inundating the web with LDS testimonials to crowd out anti-Mormon sites. It does the Church no favors to push LDS friendly sites to the top of search engines if they have no content. A few websites with high quality content will generally be sufficient for curbing the effects of anti-Mormon sites.

Lastly, let's just clarify that I have yet to see the term "cyber missionary" in anyting published by the Church. Elder Ballard's message was that we should be using technology to share the Gospel, which is a far cry from using technology to proselyte. Like jdlessley said, we ought to be using technology to supplement and complement our one-on-one efforts to spread the Gospel. Examples might be include publishing pictures and details a ward service project on your personal blog; or talking about how you felt at your child's baptism; or sharing highlights from a talk you gave in Sacrament. If you're using the blog to highlight what is happening in your life for friends and family to see, then we are encouraged to highlight some of the things that happen in our religious lives as well. I say this because there seems to be a swell of people who identify themselves as 'cyber missionaries,' and I think it's important that it be understood that the Church does not sponsor an online proselyting effort. Instead, our missionary efforts online should be similar to our missionary efforts in reality.