tips for improving forum google rank and in general?

[Brad38]

Hi Everyone,

I was wondering if you guys and gals could give me some pointers to improving my forum's ranking on google and to get indexed better on search engines. I seem to recall reading here that someone had a tip to do with Gmail and linking that way, but I can't find it now and I don't remember what exactly they were talking about.

I am referenced on google now but recently I changed the prefix name of my forum to something more descriptive than before. The problem is, that since I changed my forum's name, I've lost all my pages on google. Before, I would search for my forum and find about 180 page references to my forum, now there is only 1. I only switched names about a week ago so am I being impatient?

Also, can anyone tell me what happens when you switch names? I'm still finding my old address references on google with the various page links...will they eventually get deleted? Will my new address get all the same indexing as the old one did?

Sorry for all the questions...I don't want a huge forum, but I would like to get some new members and ones that I don't have to invite.

Thanks gang.