Watch the SEO!

[Ikadon]

Hello everyone!

Although some say that Google's instant-search is the death for Search-Engine-Optimization, many disagree.

First of all, let me say that I really love IPS with all its applications. I don't make a living from building a community, it's just a hobby to me, still I decided to leave vBulletin behind and find something more flexible for me. Here I am. I do love all the possibilities that come with IPS-Products that I really missed in other software, but SEO isn't one of them.

SEO in IPS seems to be neglected, a leitmotif seems to be missing as every application works after its own semantic logic of SEO.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think that SEO should be THE focus. It isn't for other software as well. Look at vBulletin, with 4.0 they introduced a basic (but still logical) SEO into their software, still there is vBSEO, which is being maintained by another company and does much more than the average human/bot-link-rewriting.

But can it be that such a feature-rich software that IP has can't really be competitive when it comes to SEO? How can it be that there are that many threads around where customers complain about decreasing numbers of visitors, (traffic-)income and such and the only common base is their move to IPB (Version 3)? How can it be that an old bull on a special topic is outpaced by newcomers just because they use a different software? This happens!

Please IPS hire a special SEO-guy, follow a common thread through all of your applications and be competitive in this sector as well. You've done such great work, you've features that vBulletin lacks, you could be #1 by now, but vBulletin is getting their stuff together now it seems.

Regards,
Ikadon

PS: I keep the faith in you! ;)

[Guest]

Hello everyone!

Although some say that Google's instant-search is the death for Search-Engine-Optimization, many disagree.

First of all, let me say that I really love IPS with all its applications. I don't make a living from building a community, it's just a hobby to me, still I decided to leave vBulletin behind and find something more flexible for me. Here I am. I do love all the possibilities that come with IPS-Products that I really missed in other software, but SEO isn't one of them.

SEO in IPS seems to be neglected, a leitmotif seems to be missing as every application works after its own semantic logic of SEO.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that SEO should be THE focus. It isn't for other software as well. Look at vBulletin, with 4.0 they introduced a basic (but still logical) SEO into their software, still there is vBSEO, which is being maintained by another company and does much more than the average human/bot-link-rewriting.

But can it be that such a feature-rich software that IP has can't really be competitive when it comes to SEO? How can it be that there are that many threads around where customers complain about decreasing numbers of visitors, (traffic-)income and such and the only common base is their move to IPB (Version 3)? How can it be that an old bull on a special topic is outpaced by newcomers just because they use a different software? This happens!

Please IPS hire a special SEO-guy, follow a common thread through all of your applications and be competitive in this sector as well. You've done such great work, you've features that vBulletin lacks, you could be #1 by now, but vBulletin is getting their stuff together now it seems.

Regards,

Ikadon

PS: I keep the faith in you! ;)

I used to work for two different SEO agencies, and now work for IP.Board full time. Whilst SEO is not my focus, I have been able to advise quite a lot. IP.Board is actually significantly better out of the box than vBulletin for SEO, and a number of converts have reported significant gains since switching from vB+vBSEO to IP.Board. The potential reasons for the loss of traffic some other administrators are experiencing are vast, and range from the simple fact that a massive change such as switching software is disruptive to search rankings to admins making rash decisions and switching things too frequently.

We have some further improvements to make in later releases, but overall we're pretty happy with IP.Board's SEO performance. Is there anything in particular you feel is missing that we could consider?

[Carl M]

They have already his name is .Dan :)

[rastaX]

Well, not necessarily "out of the box". I had some issues with my Google indexing. I put in a ticket and you guys, as usual, were very prompt and helpful. You got me started in the right direction. But what I finally figured out was that I needed to configure the SEO for my board. It wasn't hard and it didn't take much time, but WOW!, did it make a difference.

I think there is a need for a direct link from the ACP to the documentation. I know, I know, it's all there on the site if you know where to look. Why not make it easy? I really find the vB ACP to be a mess, but they have excellent documentation, each function has a clickable link for help with it. This could save harried admins trying to set up unfamiliar software a lot of time. Task was easy, search for help, time consuming. ;)

[bfarber]

I can respect if you are new here that you are not very familiar with our software. I recommend you read up through our Blog to see some of the many many vast SEO improvements made to IP.Board out of the box over the last several versions before you make a decision such as "SEO is neglected". That statement couldn't be further from the truth. :)






And that's just since 3.1.0. There are several other SEO related blog entries we posted when working on 3.0 originally. Also, I've excluded SEO related entries for other applications, such as IP.Content, to focus only on IPB itself.

We take search engine optimization seriously, and put much effort into ensuring IP.Board is as optimized out of the box as possible. If you have specific feedback or changes you would like to see, by all means let us know.

[Ikadon]

Hmm, I wouldn't say I'm not familiar with your software, nor would I say that I'm an expert working with it.

What I do see is the complaints about SEO, such as here:

http://community.invisionpower.com/topic/321563-seo-of-31-specific-case-starting-from-zero/

I don't care for most projects, as they're just hobbies, but I recognized an impact too.

[Guest]

Hmm, I wouldn't say I'm not familiar with your software, nor would I say that I'm an expert working with it.

What I do see is the complaints about SEO, such as here:

http://community.invisionpower.com/topic/321563-seo-of-31-specific-case-starting-from-zero/

I don't care for most projects, as they're just hobbies, but I recognized an impact too.

But as I said, as far as we're concerned, things are pretty good. The problems other users are having are not necessarily related to the software itself, but the changes they have made.

We're very happy to look at specific requests or issues, however.

[bfarber]

Hmm, I wouldn't say I'm not familiar with your software, nor would I say that I'm an expert working with it.

What I do see is the complaints about SEO, such as here:

http://community.invisionpower.com/topic/321563-seo-of-31-specific-case-starting-from-zero/

I don't care for most projects, as they're just hobbies, but I recognized an impact too.

Yes, there will always be users whose sites may be moving forward, and likewise there will always be sites who start to slip. Google changes what they consider to be good content all the time, so perhaps something that the users were doing that Google approved of, Google has changed their mind about? I noticed that most of the user posting in that topic mentioned that they used CSEO for instance - perhaps while that worked for them for a while, they are now being penalized for having used that particular addon somehow? It's somewhat coincidental, if nothing else.

All I was pointing out was that we do take SEO seriously, and if you have specific suggestions we're happy to look into them, but general "please make seo better" statements aren't really too terribly helpful on their own. :) As Dan said, we stand by the changes we have made thus far - we feel they are industry-standard changes that are accepted as being helpful to one's site.