realmaverickuk Posted January 28, 2012 Share Posted January 28, 2012 From an SEO indexing perspective, the simple default pagination on IP.Board is pretty bad. Especially for larger boards. Google deems content less and less important, the deeper in to the website it is. The more clicks it takes to get to a piece of content, the deeper it is classed and thus the more difficult it will be to rank. By having limited paging options, it takes more clicks to get to older posts, than it would if there were say 1-10 paging. The bigger the forum, the most of an issue this will be. I recommend those of you who run big forums, alter your paging to show 1-5 or 1-10 and your forum will be better indexed and traffic will likely increase. I was hoping this was going to be included in the 3.3 SEO update, but it appears not as IPB is currently running 3.3. Perhaps it's something that could be added before the final release? I have lots of data to backup my theory if anybody is interested. Thanks for reading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SubStrider Posted January 29, 2012 Share Posted January 29, 2012 I recommend those of you who run big forums, alter your paging to show 1-5 or 1-10 and your forum will be better indexed and traffic will likely increase. I was hoping this was going to be included in the 3.3 SEO update, but it appears not as IPB is currently running 3.3. Perhaps it's something that could be added before the final release? I have lots of data to backup my theory if anybody is interested. Interesting observation. Maybe we will put it to use and check, considering we are observing a huge traffic drop after moving to IPB. Anything that takes us closer to VBSEO level is good. How do we alter the pagination to show more pages? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realmaverickuk Posted January 29, 2012 Author Share Posted January 29, 2012 Hi SubStrider, I'm not sure how to alter it, I'm not a programmer. But I'm pretty sure somebody here will be able to point you in the right direction. The biggest issue with IPB is definitely the SEO. But it looks like things are going to improve, I just want for the developers to continue to listen and make changes where applicable. Obviously not all modifications will suit everybody, so we won't get everything we want. However some items, such as this, will improve indexation of all sites using IPB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Management Matt Posted January 30, 2012 Management Share Posted January 30, 2012 I don't disagree but I think having 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 as page links isn't optimal from a normal user's point of view. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 I don't disagree but I think having 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 as page links isn't optimal from a normal user's point of view. People still care about normal users? I thought we all just catered to search engines now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Management Matt Posted January 30, 2012 Management Share Posted January 30, 2012 It's easy to do: sources/classes/output/publicOutput.php Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
media Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Great.. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfarber Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 I have lots of data to backup my theory if anybody is interested. I would be interested to hear what lead you to this conclusion/observation if you cared to share. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Leclair Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 It's easy to do: sources/classes/output/publicOutput.php [img] [/img] [img] [/img] Is this do-able in version 3.1.4? If so, what file would we modify to accomplish this? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Leclair Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Nevermind, got it. It was /admin/sources/classes/output/publicOutput.php. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axel Wers Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 It's easy to do: sources/classes/output/publicOutput.php [img] [/img] [img] [/img] Yeah, good point. I would recommend set up it to 5 as default, I think it's optimal. 2 is too little in big topics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axel Wers Posted January 30, 2012 Share Posted January 30, 2012 Yes and another thing what WILL BE GOOD FOR SEO By default every page in topic has title by number in source code I see <li class='page'><a href="http://forum.domain.tld/topic/5139-topic-name/page__st__200" title="9">9</a></li> Why title is "9" when actually title of 9th page is "Topic Name - Board Name - page 9?" so in source code should be <li class='page'><a href="http://forum.domain.tld/topic/5139-topic-name/page__st__200" title="Topic Name - Board Name - page 9">9</a></li> Because actual title of 9th page is Topic Name - Board Name - page 9 not only 9 Currently page with the same content has two titles, it's not very good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realmaverickuk Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 I don't disagree but I think having 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 as page links isn't optimal from a normal user's point of view. Google don't care about indexing their own search engine and yet they have 1-10, they invest considerably in to their UI. So I think it's safe to say, 1-10 is optimal for a user. It's highly unlikely, that having 1-10 will effect a users experience. However it's almost guaranteed that a simple prev and next, will massively impact both indexation and rankings and thus overall traffic to the website. I guarantee and will be willing to bet any amount of money, that any website moving from VB to IPB, will suffer a traffic loss. This is largely because VB users take advantage of VBSEO and this takes these kinds of SEO aspects in to consideration. I truly believe this won't harm user experience at all, but will benefit traffic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realmaverickuk Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 I would be interested to hear what lead you to this conclusion/observation if you cared to share. Sure, checkout this post from Rand Fishkin over at SEOmoz.org http://www.seomoz.org/blog/pagination-best-practices-for-seo-user-experience It explains things thoroughly. And I really think this is something that should be taken seriously. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realmaverickuk Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 Btw I'd be interested to hear what kind of results you guys get from making the change :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rimi Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 Hello. In my personal experience seeing 10 page links has been helpful in navigation. I support changing the default to at least five. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
realmaverickuk Posted January 31, 2012 Author Share Posted January 31, 2012 I would go as far as saying the only benefit of basic prev and next is purely aesphetic. It does look more application like. Also on a mobile skin, prev and next is ideal, because of the smaller screen size. But on a desktop version of a website, default should be at least 1-5. One last thing, it maybe easy to change but the default setting should be optimal, as joe blogs won't know the issue even exists and so won't find the solution. As its such a simple change. I hope to see it in 3.3 final release :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rimi Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 I don't even think next and prev are aesthetic, they make everything more difficult overall for those really really large threads. For example if I'm browsing through a picture thread and I just want to look at posted pictures and the thread has 200 pages I like being able to click on page 180 and then 172 and then 164 and then 158. Maybe I'm the only person who does this? I just know that as far as page browsing goes I'm much happier clicking than I am opening a dropdown box and typing in a page number. I have done it where I'm on page 30 and want to go to page 80 so I just click my way their 40->50->60->70->80. I think thread browsing is more likely to increase (reducing bounce rates) if you see links to a lot of other pages. It's like when you go on Wikipedia to look up the history of PHP and end up reading about monkeys. I'm just giving an example. I think the pros outweigh the cons. I suppose ultimately this doesn't matter since the setting is in 3.3 now but I just wanted to share. Those arguing that lots of page links ruin the user experience I just don't agree with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfarber Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 Sure, checkout this post from Rand Fishkin over at SEOmoz.orghttp://www.seomoz.or...user-experience It explains things thoroughly. And I really think this is something that should be taken seriously. Thanks. Thanks for sharing. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ehLife.ca Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 I guarantee and will be willing to bet any amount of money, that any website moving from VB to IPB, will suffer a traffic loss. This is largely because VB users take advantage of VBSEO and this takes these kinds of SEO aspects in to consideration. This comment scares the crap out of me. My site is currently VB with VBSEO. I own ip.board now and we're about to make the switch in the upcoming months. I know very little about SEO, but I can't stress enough how important it is to me. I just mention this as feedback to the powers that be at ip.board... please do all that you can to make SEO optimization awesome. :twitch: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rimi Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 I know very little about SEO, but I can't stress enough how important it is to me.Hello. What does this mean? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ehLife.ca Posted February 1, 2012 Share Posted February 1, 2012 Hello. What does this mean? Perhaps not worded correctly. It means I don't know how to implement proper SEO, but it's very important to me that it is properly implemented. I rely on the software installed to do a very good job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
miraclesun Posted February 5, 2012 Share Posted February 5, 2012 Perhaps not worded correctly. It means I don't know how to implement proper SEO, but it's very important to me that it is properly implemented. I rely on the software installed to do a very good job. use attracta.com Also, to IP: Will there be a "last page" added in the next release for the mobile skin? On the current skin, you have to navigate through however many pages there are in the thread to get to the last page which is not convenient. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SubStrider Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 use attracta.com Also, to IP: Will there be a "last page" added in the next release for the mobile skin? On the current skin, you have to navigate through however many pages there are in the thread to get to the last page which is not convenient.In the paginationTemplate in mobile skin I added the following before the last </if> statement. <if test="lastpage:|:!empty( $work['_showEndDots'] )"> <a class="button page-button next" href="{parse url="{$data['baseUrl']}&{$data['startValueKey']}={parse expression="intval( ( $work['pages'] - 1 ) * $data['itemsPerPage'] )"}{$data['anchor']}" base="{$data['base']}" seotitle="{$data['seoTitle']}" template="{$data['seoTemplate']}"}" title="{$this->lang->words['tpl_gotolast']}" rel='last'>Last {$this->lang->words['_raquo']}</a> </if> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SubStrider Posted February 7, 2012 Share Posted February 7, 2012 Sure, checkout this post from Rand Fishkin over at SEOmoz.orghttp://www.seomoz.or...user-experience It explains things thoroughly. And I really think this is something that should be taken seriously. Thanks.That article also talks about number of listing on a page. So on a related note, what is the ideal number of posts per page for usability and SEO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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