I Would Like to See Better SEO

[Lase]

.... because at the moment mine's appalling. I mean, I don't even rank.

I've got a forum dedicated to just one piece of eqpt, a whole board that is regarded as the number one resource for information on that subject. Yet I type the name of this product into Google and I'm nowhere to be seen. I mean I go 15 to 20 pages of Google yields back and beyond and I'm still nowhere to be seen.

If I'm lucky my site might get mentioned in one of the spurious blog posts on blogs posting about all and sundry by whoever took the time to write a half-baked generic article that everybody has probably seen a thousand times.

Something’s gotta be wrong there surely.

Soooo, someone said "It's cos it's IP.Board. You need a static homepage then get someone to sort the SEO on that, that’s how to do it."

I employ a company to sort the Homepage out which we're doing now. Then look to have someone who specialises in SEO to handle that end and they're coming back with ridiculous figures like 12,000 GBP a year. Most people in the UK work all year in a 9 to 5 for 13k and it'll pay their living expenses.

So what is it with IP.Board SEO. Why is it that I've constantly got Google and Yahoo Spiders sitting in 'members online' yet I don't rank, even in the slightest, on either?

I think this needs attention because something’s array. new boards come and go all the time, maybe fewer would die if IP.Board was a little more SEO friendly.

[Lase]

Incidentally I type 'SEO' into the search bar here to perhaps find some tips on improving mine and I get "No results found for 'seo'."

[Lase]

If there is some stuff I need to be doing to engage with search engines like Google aside from adding Google Analytics into my template that sort of information should be sent to new clients on sign up.

Alternatively if anyone could recommend any reading I'd appreciate it because terms like 'maximise SEO IP.Board' in Google isn't giving me anything tangible at all.

[Aiwa]

Turn on Friendly URL's... Turn on mod_rewrite... Install IP.SEO and generate a site map. Set up meta tags...

That's a good a place as any to start.

[Gianpiero L.]

.........Incidentally I type 'SEO' into the search bar here to perhaps find some tips on improving mine and I get "No results found for 'seo'.".....

Alternatively if anyone could recommend any reading I'd appreciate it because terms like 'maximise SEO IP.Board' in Google isn't giving me anything tangible at all.

if in your interest some discussion about IP.SEO are in a dedicated forum

Invision Power Services → IPS Client Services → IPS Extras → IP.SEO

http://community.invisionpower.com/forum/462-ipseo/

[Lase]

Thank you both of you.

The upshot of this is, I was able to generate 1000 visits a day in our first two or three months, now we're struggling. The reason is, achieving that 1000 visits a day involved being pro-active. Logistically it isn't feasable for me to do that forever. The upshot is though, I've got a few boards now and if this one dies the rest have had it too.

Had no idea about the SEO forum. See this is the kind of information that should be packaged up in a communication with all new clients. How to sort SEO out, where to find guides on navigating ACP, Links to the most popular hooks etc etc. It just feels like at the moment it's "Thanks for purchasing, here's a link to your community, we expect you know what you're doing, crack-on, see you later" It would be my advise to stagger that. Let the client get to grips with their new board, then 1 to 3 days later send them a guide to where exactly they can find information that'll help them get going because the first things a new Admin wants to do is get some content on there.

This forum is filled with great people and I can't argue with IP.Board support I've always found them to be relatively quick although I wouldn't want to bother IP.Board staff with issues like this, but I'm lucky to get responses here because of the way I'd worded it. Had it simply been a request for tech help it would have been relegated to the tech support forum where noone goes. How do you combat that I don't know.

Re: IP.SEO:

The product isn't supported anymore so you shouldn't use it. The functionality that it provides will be built in to IPB 3.4 so just wait for that.

Naturally I'm quite eager to know roughly when this might be as I'm not sure I can afford to wait, any ideas from anyone?


Edit - By the way I see how topics on SEO are hated so I'm loathed to have started another one of probably dozens. Many just seemed like there was nothing practical for me in terms of basics.





Re: FURLS (For the reader also looking for help with this stuff, go here )

I've got this in my conf global:

$INFO['use_friendly_urls'] = '1';

So I guess I've already got that. This is a new board (past 4 months maybe). However a typical URL contains '.net/index.php?/topic/205-' So not sure what to make of that.





Re: Mod.rewrite.

Just before I slect 'yes' on this in ACP - It says this underneath:

If yes, add a file called .htaccess with the following contents.
<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
Options -MultiViews
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} .*.(jpeg|jpg|gif|png)$
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteRule . /public/404.php [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule . /index.php [L]
</IfModule>

So what does this mean? Do I open a file in Notepad, paste that in, then copy that txt file over into where my conf.global is?

[Aiwa]

Re: Mod.rewrite.

Just before I slect 'yes' on this in ACP - It says this underneath:

If yes, add a file called .htaccess with the following contents.

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>

Options -MultiViews

RewriteEngine On

RewriteBase /

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} .*.(jpeg|jpg|gif|png)$

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteRule . /public/404.php [L]

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d

RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

</IfModule>

So what does this mean? Do I open a file in Notepad, paste that in, then copy that txt file over into where my conf.global is?

Yes, set the setting to 'yes'... Then open notepad... Paste that in there.. Save it as .htaccess no .txt extention... just '.htaccess' ... then upload it to where your conf_global is...

[Lase]

I'm learning. Thank you for taking the time Aiwa.

For the reader - there was already a blank file called .htaccess in there so I just edited it from within FTP.

[Rimi]

Naturally I'm quite eager to know roughly when this might be as I'm not sure I can afford to wait, any ideas from anyone?

November 16, 2012 at 1:41:23.7 PM EDT.

[Mikey B]

Naturally I'm quite eager to know roughly when this might be as I'm not sure I can afford to wait, any ideas from anyone?

There's no ETA at present on 3.4, but suffice to say that it is coming sooner rather than later. :)

[Tsvi]

Yes, you are right. I have to same problem.
Lately, I got into SEO big time, and I've managed to make my ranks better in few good keywords I chose, but every time they are getting up and down... It's frustrating!
What I'm really waiting patiently is IPB 3.4 (I'll wait for stable version like 3.4.2 or 3.4.3) and only then I'll install it and start making my ranks better again,
because now the structure of the URLs is terrible, and it's not so easy to customize everything I want in this product.

[Rod.]

Hopefully we'll be able to remove the category and site name from the meta title on threads. This will also help improve rankings.

[Tsvi]

Hopefully we'll be able to remove the category and site name from the meta title on threads. This will also help improve rankings.

If you want to remove the site name from the title of the thread you can just simple edit a code..
Just go to this file:

/admin/applications/forums/modules_public/forums/topics.php

Looks for this line:

$this->registry->output->setTitle( strip_tags( $topicData['title'] ) . '<%pageNumber%> - ' . $forumData['name'] . ' - ' . $this->settings['board_name']);

And replace it with this line:

$this->registry->output->setTitle( strip_tags( $topicData['title'] ) . '<%pageNumber%> - ' . $forumData['name']);

Should do the trick, well I'm sure it is because I tested it ;)
Anyway, can you tell me why you think it'll improve the SEO? Lately, I'm open for suggestions... Maybe I'll use this trick, too. ;)

[Lase]

I'd probably want IP Staff approval on that because it's quite a big step to take.

[Rod.]

TSVI - Thank you for that. I actually want to remove the forum category name too. I've been researching SEO for the past 18 months very heavily, and am a member of some well known SEO forums. The title meta tag is one of the most important tags, as it tells the search engine/user what the page is about. Google see's the title as keywords, with most weight placed upon the first few words in the title.

Which of these titles do you think will rank higher (with content being equal). Let's say the thread is about How to season a cigar humidor.

Title 1: How to season a cigar humidor - Cigar Storage Talk and Discussion - MyCigarSite.com

Title 2: How to season a cigar humidor

Title 2 will rank higher. Title 1 has too many un-related keywords, thus causing it to rank lower.

When I compete against ALL other cigar sites running vB, I tend to be lower on the list. Funny thing is, my content is higher quality and my site is substantially older and more established, with far fewer ads. vB tends to display titles as shown in title 2 above. Remove unnecessary keywords in the title tag, and you'll notice some improvement.

[Rimi]

I'd probably want IP Staff approval on that because it's quite a big step to take.

Seems like a pretty straightforward edit to me.

[Aiwa]

It really depends on your board on whether those keywords are unncessary...

A topic title like....

'How to overclock your processor' > Intel > PC's...

Without having the 'intel' forum listed there is no way to know if the topic is referring to Intel or AMD or Graphics processors... So just because it's not beneficial in your application doesn't mean it's not useful for others...

If you have a self hosted license, you are free to modify the source code to your hearts content and 'tweak' things to work whats best for you.

[bfarber]

Just so everyone knows, we're following this topic and listening. Many of the suggestions I'm not sure are the best direction for the software, but it is always interesting to watch things that clients change and see how those changes perform.

If you believe you are having technical issues with the software, please feel free to submit a ticket. If you believe you have found a bug, please submit a bug report.

Otherwise, if you have specific changes you would like to see made to the software, please feel free to share. I just caution anyone who reads this topic against jumping to conclusions and assuming one suggestion posted is necessarily the best position to take or route to take your site. Weigh the benefits of any change you make and be sure you know what you are doing.

[.Ian]

Lase - you are welcome to post a URL to your community - maybe there are other issues in play here?

[Rod.]

It really depends on your board on whether those keywords are unncessary...

A topic title like....

'How to overclock your processor' > Intel > PC's...

Without having the 'intel' forum listed there is no way to know if the topic is referring to Intel or AMD or Graphics processors... So just because it's not beneficial in your application doesn't mean it's not useful for others...

If you have a self hosted license, you are free to modify the source code to your hearts content and 'tweak' things to work whats best for you.

You are absolutely correct. The title you suggested above may actually perform better if someone searched for that topic name along with PC or Intel. For my site, being cigar related, the more specific to the topic we can get the better the results are. I have performed several case studies over the past 18 months, and have determined which small enhancements work best for me. One size certainly doesn't fit all, I'm only hopeful that IPB will allow us to customize the title tag a bit without having to modify the source code. It takes around 3 months to see if the tweaks made actually work, due to the "google dance", etc...


In the past, people would purchase hundreds of backlinks from fiverr.com - I never participated in this as it was considered blackhat seo. In any case, many of these sites got hit hard with the Panda/Penguin Google update that occurred a few months ago, as it's considered web spam. Matt Cutts has discussed this in his blog - http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

If we remove duplicate content and create a better link structure and better title tags, our forums will rank much better.

You'll also want to be sure your menus are setup properly, and practice Link Silo's. Here's a description of how it works - http://www.bruceclay.com/seo/silo.htm

Do you now see how choosing the right keywords can dramatically affect SEO?

Some think SEO is a joke and that Google is so smart that it can pull quality content 100% of the time. Google is an excellent SE and does a great job, however it's a robot and still needs proper guidance with keywords, proper meta tags, good link structure. Every little bit creates link juice. You also need quality backlinks,but don't spam! Google's new update will catch you spamming, and you'll get penalized.

SEO is an important topic that needs to be discussed more and evaluated, and then incorporated into IPB. I'm glad to see that Matt is working on this.

I'm with Charles, I love SEO topics too. ;) Without SEO, no one will find our forums, hence we fail and so does IPB (no more annual renewals, etc). Let's not get carried away with SEO, but be mindful that we do need our sites optimized properly with the basics.

Hope this helps...

[Rod.]

Just to help others, here is what I'm doing with respect to SEO:
That's SEO in a nutshell. There is more to it, however practicing the basics will really help you rank higher.

[*]Use the Google keyword tool - https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool - Research which keywords have low competition yet yield high hits. [*]Incorporate these keywords into your title and content, but use no more than 5% saturation. Anymore can be considered keyword stuffing. [*]Create quality articles using the keywords of your choice. Incorporate these keywords as a phrase into your title tag. The Keyword tag doesn't do much these days, and is actually ignored by Google. [*]Your articles should be minimum 500 words each. Any less, it's not enough. [*]Use Silo'd linking structure if possible. Links should describe your content. [*]Create quality anchor text with keywords in your link/anchor. For instance, if you create a backlink on another site, and your site is about gardening, your anchor text should be something like: gardening forum. [*]Put the most important links at the top left of your page and use anchor text properly. [*]Don't have any duplicate content, this will hinder your rankings drastically. [*]Use good description tags when possible. Otherwise Google will create them for you, sometimes this is good, other times it's not. [*]Use H2 tags on your page to describe a paragraph, and be sure to place your important keywords towards the beginning of the header.

[Lase]

Lase - you are welcome to post a URL to your community - maybe there are other issues in play here?

Good of you Ian. I would if I could edit the post at a later date, but instead I've put it in my signiture for you for a bit.

[Lase]

Starting to see this with one of my other boards now.

I was totally on the ball. I've set the board up 8 months before the piece of eqpt is due to launch when not many people know about it. Gradually as more people find out about the hardware I'm seeing spurious blog posts cutting and pasting the same information (one blog has clearly just copied all of the information I've compiled from respective threads and put it all into one blog post) starting to fill up the Google yield pages.

At least I'm making it easy for people who know where to look, improve their own image of being a good source of information.

Again I'm nowhere to be seen on Google.

I also have rivals. And I'm watching as they race away from me at a staggering rate on platforms like phpbb and VB. That's painful to see.

Have to be honest it's starting to make me consider switching. I've got 5 IP.Boards now and another 5 yet to build. Maybe I'm better off making that switch sooner rather than later.

[bfarber]

What site are you referring to?

I visited the site in your signature and went to blogs.

http://www.blackmagicuser.net/blogs

I get a permission denied message because guests don't have permission to view the blogs. That being the case, naturally Google cannot index your blogs. In that situation, SEO has nothing to do with the issue - you're simply not allowing the spiders to see the content you want indexed.

Forgive me if you are referring to another site - I just tried the one in your signature.

[Lase]

Thanks for having a look Brandon. The one in my sig is the one I'm primarily concerned with yeah.

I've just disabled blogs and calander. You reminded me to do it. I might also do away with the Homepage or what we call 'Front Page'. The reason being we've no real use for Calander, and the blogs would encourage discussion outside of the forum. Same with articles we're doing away with those too and creating a sort of cross between articles and an article slider that you can see is present on the index. What it's going to do is link to threads instead of articles and we'll use a third part host for the images ie postimage.org.

No when I mentioned blogs I just meant actual blogs out there. Things like blogger or Wordpress that kind of thing. People who have a loosely related more general blog that they post on and they've just happened to post a blog about the same content my entire site specisliases in. Thse types of single blog posts are on the first 3 pages of Google yields and I've been back as far as page 25 with an optimum search term and we're nowhere.