SeNioR-

We are excited to announce that the Invision Community GraphQL API is now available.
This blog takes you through what GraphQL is and what makes it better than existing APIs present in Invision Community. It does get a bit technical, but you don't need to be a developer to appreciate how GraphQL will make life easier for those that do develop.
What is GraphQL?
GraphQL describes itself as a query language for APIs that gives clients the power to ask for precisely what is needed and nothing more.
GraphQL was created by Facebook in 2012 and is now an open-source project governed by the GraphQL Foundation, which operates independently of Facebook.
What makes GraphQL better than existing REST APIs?
GraphQL has several advantages over the existing REST API present in Invision Community, and these include:
Flexibility: GraphQL allows clients to request only the data they need, reducing over-fetching or under-fetching data. Getting data from a REST API often means receiving many fields and values you don't need to complete the operation you're creating.
Versatility: GraphQL can query multiple databases or APIs, making it a more versatile solution than REST, which often requires multiple endpoints for multiple data types.
Strong Typing: GraphQL has a robust type system, making it easier to understand the capabilities of an API and catch errors early in the development process.
Better Performance: By allowing the client to request only the data it needs, GraphQL can improve the performance of an application compared to REST, which often returns more data than necessary.
Easier to evolve: The schema-based nature of GraphQL allows for more straightforward and less-breaking changes to the API compared to REST.
Let's look at an example
You're building a dashboard that uses Invision Community data for your Node.js application that shows the latest topics, latest registered members and calendar events. With the REST API, you need to make three requests to get all the data you need. With GraphQL, you can fetch the exact data you need with a single request.

Modern Web Development
GraphQL is now the standard for modern web development, including building mobile apps. A modern web app has a "front-end" and a "back-end".
The front-end refers to the user-facing part of the web application. The front-end is typically written in client-side languages such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript and is responsible for rendering the user interface and handling user interactions. It communicates with the back-end to retrieve and display data.
The back-end refers to the server-side part of the web application. The back-end is typically written in server-side languages such as PHP, and is responsible for performing business logic, managing data, and serving API responses to the front-end.
Using GraphQL as the interface between the front-end and back-end, the development and deployment of each component can be done independently, improving the overall efficiency and scalability of the application.
At Invision Community, we know that some clients use REST to pull data from Invision Community for use in bespoke web and mobile apps. So we hope you're even more excited about the possibilities with GraphQL.
A list with all currently available queries, mutators and data types can be found in our developer documentation section.

Extending Invision Community Functionality
Of course, you also have full access to the GraphQL API in the Invision Community framework, so you can use GraphQL inside your controllers to run your queries, which has the advantage that you won't need to worry about future changes to the API. 
In addition, we have also created a GraphQL template plugin, which can be utilized inside templates to fetch any data.
This is a more technology-heavy blog than usual. The main takeaway is that we continue to invest in ways to allow your Invision Community data to be used by your own applications. GraphQL makes that job a lot easier and much more efficient.
Let me know if you have any questions!

Humans are visual beings. Images attract our attention, can communicate ideas faster than the written word and can trigger meaningful discussions. At Invision Community we recognised this very early in the company history and have included a Gallery application for many years. During this time online communities have evolved substantially so we thought it was time to re-assess what it means to offer a community gallery and have some exciting developments to share.
Visual Refresh
The first thing we wanted to do was to give the look & feel a modern overhaul. @Ehren has done a fantastic job with modern design ideas. We took inspiration from the recent overhaul of the Events app and included a brand new Gallery overview page. This view better highlights featured and new images but also brings recent image comments in to focus to promote discussion.

Better Video Support
Video support has been included in Invision Community for a while but browser support has varied wildly. This often led to a poor experience where viewers were prompted to download plugins or forced to download the video in its entirety. Browser support for MP4 playback has moved on however and we have been able to update Gallery with some new functionality.
Frames from the video can be extracted for the preview thumbnail automatically. We have retained the option to upload a separate preview image however for people that want manual control over the image shown. Skipping ahead in videos is now also supported without the need to download the entire file or use plugins.
For communities that are able to leverage our cloud platform non MP4 videos will be automatically converted to support these features.
Searchable Image Contents
Another benefit for Cloud Communities is images can now be optionally analysed to make their contents searchable. For example, if an image of a tree or woodland scene is uploaded, this would previously only be searchable if the title or description of the image contained specific words or phrases. Now images can be identified solely by their visual contents.
NSFW (Not Safe For Work)
Invision Community contains tools to automatically moderate sensitive images to prevent them being posted. Some communities with more mature audiences may wish to allow these to be posted however but with some protection. We have therefore added the ability for images to be optionally set as NSFW when uploading. This will cause images to be blurred until the viewer opts in to viewing them.

Performance & Usability
Images by their nature can be slow to load (particularly on mobile connections) so we took some time and removed lots of redundant javascript and CSS. Where appropriate we have also added support for prefetching the next and previous images in an album or category and lazy loading is handled by the browser natively. We combined this with an improved image navigation experience using an image carousel when viewing individual images and removed the confusing Lightbox overlay. The Lightbox is now used solely for full screen image previews without the visual clutter of comment counts and other meta data.

These changes are the start of further Gallery improvements to come and as always we will continue to develop based on your feedback.
Let us know what you think in the comments.

Welcome to my first Invision Community blog post!
For those that haven't yet seen me making my way around this community, I'm Gary, and I have just recently joined the Customer Service team at Invision Community. I want to take this moment to thank the staff for giving me such an amazing opportunity and welcoming me with open arms.
My history goes way back to circa 2004-2005 (I was still in high school) where I first dug my hands into forums and forum software in the good old Invisionfree days. Through the years I have created too many communities to count, including my own free post-to-host hosting service (remember those days?). Some were successful and so many others were anything but. Little did I know these experiences would only get me more and more hooked into this virtual world!
Forums have been more to me than just an invaluable source of information. They are communities of like-minded people sharing their knowledge, experiences, hobbies and most of all, coming together in a common place to just be themselves. I have experienced nearly every forum software out there, though I always made my way back to the Invision Community suite of products as I not only found it to be a very powerful and dynamic bit of kit, but it always provided the solutions I wanted and needed for my communities.
I thought I would share some tips on things that have worked for me when creating my own community. This will make up part one of a set of planned blog entries relating to community tips in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!

Use the KISS principle.
One thing I have found in order to engage guests and new and existing members of my community is to incorporate the 'Keep it simple, silly!' principle.
When you visit a community and you're overwhelmed with categories, forums and unnecessary pinned topics, you are actually not doing yourself a favour. It mostly adds confusion to your community and does the complete opposite to having things organised. Too much clutter is never a good thing, and keeping things orderly and ensuring content is concise will provide your members with a more comfortable and easier overall experience. I did not incorporate this principle into my communities, and soon realised that was a huge contributor to the cause of their demise. 😅
Keep some of these in mind:
Can I combine forums that are similar in content? Do I need so many separately pinned topics? Can I write more concisely? Targeting this point on the more administrative side of things like 'how to use this forum' topics, forum descriptions, etc. Are there things that are already self-explanatory and do not require repeat descriptions or mentions? Can I use less jargon and target my writing to a wider audience? Am I using too many graphics? If the above is not a factor, can graphics assist in reducing large chunks of plain text? When is too much, in fact, too much? Quality over quantity as they say. How about, less is more?
Whatever stance you take and whichever influential quote you can most relate to, you want your audience to feel welcomed, not overstimulated with irrelevant content you think they need to see. Let your audience guide your community. I will delve into this further in the next blog entry.
I'll leave it there for this edition, otherwise I may just keep you here all day...
I'm sure there are many of you who are doing this so well already, so please share your own useful and proven tips and tricks. What have you found works for you and your community? What is something you are doing differently or uniquely in an effort to keep it simple?

When we speak to community moderators of busy sites about what they want to see in future Invision Community versions, most ask for ways to improve daily workflows.
Community moderators are at the heart of every community, and those working with busy sites quickly find that repeating the same tasks reveals ways to save clicks and precious time.
We recently released our alert system, which is a great way to get information to a single user or an entire group of members. Alerts can be set so the members have to reply before they can continue interacting with the community.
Invision Community's November release now allows moderators to send a personal alert message to the author of the content they are moderating when their content is hidden, split, locked or moved.
This video takes you through the workflow when hiding a comment.
Combining the alert feature into the moderation workflow makes it easier to inform your members that you've taken action on their content.
For example, you may notice a member posting a topic in the wrong forum. It's now straightforward to move the topic and let the author know why it's been moved and where to find it.

Perhaps you've had to hide some content that doesn't fit your community guidelines. You can now let the author know when hiding the topic and the reason it's been hidden.
Informing your members why you've taken action on their content helps educate, remind them of your community guidelines when needed and prevent confusion when they cannot locate the content they recently posted. Making a personal connection when moving or hiding a member's content helps keep a positive relationship throughout the community.
Viewing alert replies
While we were at it, we have also made it easier to track and respond to alert replies when sending them to large numbers of members.

From November onwards, you will see the number of replies sent to your message when viewing alerts in the Moderator Control Panel. Clicking the reply count will show all personal message replies to that alert via a top-level filter.
This new time-saving feature will come to all Invision Community platforms in November.
 @Daniel F proudly led development of this feature. 👏
We'd love your thoughts; let us know in the comments!

Community moderators have a responsibility to maintain a sense of normalcy and balance within a community.
The Invision Community platform includes powerful tools for moderators to help them mitigate issues that may arise. We just enhanced one of them.
Our new moderator approval queue feature, available in an upcoming release for all Invision Community clients, arms moderators with more information regarding why an item was sent to the approval queue in the first place.
The approval queue is a temporary waiting room for content that can either be approved, denied, hidden or deleted by a community moderator. 
Sometimes, it’s unclear to a moderator why an item was sent to the approval queue.
Our new feature solves that problem by including a reason with every item that needs to be approved. This provides clarity to the moderator in charge of handling items waiting in the wings.
There are a bunch of different methods in which an item can be held for approval:
Profanity/bad words
If a member uses a word you have deemed inappropriate, you may ask the platform via the ‘Word Filter’ option to automatically hold the post for moderator approval. In this example, the word “damn” is included in the Word Filter list. A member attempts to reply with it. Their comment is automatically held for moderator approval along with a reason why.


 
URLs
If a member posts a link to a third-party website, you may ask the platform to automatically hold it for moderator approval. 


Email addresses
If a member posts an email address, you may ask the platform to automatically hold it for moderator approval. 

 
Reviews
If a member posts a review on a digital download or a physical product, you may ask the platform to automatically hold the review for moderator approval. 


Topics/replies
A member, or group of members, must have their posts manually approved by a moderator before they can be seen by the rest of the community. 

 

A few other things worth mentioning:
The moderator approval queue explanation is compatible with all of our applications (minus the Blog). The Forum and Commerce applications are the only two apps that can be required to have moderator approval at an item level (for example, individual replies within a topic or reviews on a product).
This new feature will be available in an upcoming release.
Thoughts? Let us know what you think in the comments!

Bringing your community together with both online and in-person events is one of the most powerful ways to create meaningful connections, long-lasting relationships and one-of-a-kind experiences. 
The pandemic put a stop to many in-person events, but now that the dust is settling and people are beginning to return to some sense of normalcy, physical events are becoming commonplace. However, we can’t ignore the recent surge in online events now that COVID inspired a new norm. 
Previously, the Calendar application acted as more of a personal planner, focusing on daily, weekly, monthly and yearly happenings. That functionality still exists, but we’ll leave it to Google Calendar and the likes to handle your standard appointments. 
Instead, we’re shifting focus to community-driven events with our appropriately named app, Events, available for all Invision Community clients. 
Our Events app features a beautiful overview page that showcases community events.
Let’s take a closer look: 
 
Featured Events
calendar.mp4

Community leaders can now promote member-driven events with the “Feature” option. This highlights the event on the main overview page for all to see. It includes the event’s cover photo, date, title and description.
 
Search Events


 
Search for community events that are located near you. 
Tapping the “use my location” prompt allows your browser to identify your physical location, then shows a list of events that are in close proximity to you. 
Get granular with your search. Filter by general  location, date and/or whether the event is an in-person or online event. 

Maps

 
When searching, a map is also available for you to see in an instant what community events are happening.

Happening Near You


This section shows a list of events happening near you. It includes a snap shot of the events happening near your physical location, as well as a map of where the event is taking place.
This tailor-made page displays events based on geo-location, so communities with members from all over the world will view and experience the Events page differently. 
If there aren’t any events happening, a message block is displayed instead that says: 
 
Happening Today
 


On the day of, your event will include a badge to show the entire community the special event is happening.

Online Events


 
This section displays a list of virtual events within your community. Events are shown in chronological order by date and time.

Browse by month


 
We extended the search functionality to automatically show both in-person and online events categorized by the month. 
This is particularly useful to plan what events you’d like to attend and also see what’s in the pipeline. 
 
Event Page

Here's an example of what an Event's page looks like. It includes the event details, a map if it's an in-person event and an “Open Event” linked button for the online events. Optionally members can RSVP or confirm they attended when you request that per event.

Integrations
A particularly useful addition to our new Events application is the inclusion of popular, third-party video streaming platforms. When creating a virtual event in your Events application, you may include a link to your event and the platform will advertise it with the vendor’s logo so your community knows what to expect. When your members are ready to join, choosing the “Open Event” button will set them on their way.

Below is a complete list of platforms that Invision Community’s Events app can showcase (see examples in the screen shots above):
Zoom YouTube EventBrite On24 Facebook Google Webex Slack Discord Microsoft Teams
Here are a few examples of how your community can leverage our Events with in-person events:
Team building meeting
Unite your team with a collaborative event celebrating the company’s wins and victories. Sometimes in-person meetings spark new ideas in ways that a virtual environment can’t. 
Donation drive
Round up your local community and raise money for those in need with an in-person fundraiser. 
Training programs
Gather a group of community moderators and/or employees together and teach them how to innovate, strategize and lead with a physical training event. 
Flash sale
Make Black Friday, Boxing Day and other major retail sales an event within your community. Encourage your community to show up to a limited-time flash sale where in-person purchases are the only route to obtain an exclusive item. 
 
Let's check out some examples for online events:
Virtual happy hour
Let loose with a few of your community buddies at a virtual happy hour. Schedule something once a week or month and make a few extra friends no matter where they live (a cold brew at 5 a.m. your time when it’s 5 p.m. their time might be a tad awkward, but hey, it’s 5 p.m. somewhere). 
Holiday party
If your company is remote-based, an online holiday party is the perfect solution to spread the good time vibes. 
Interviews
Invite fans of an artist to watch a virtual live stream or music video where they can actively engage and contribute.
Fan gatherings
Speaking of fans or an artist or brand, unite people who share common interests together with a fan-fueled event. Conduct a Q&A, share inside information and create a space for them to celebrate their collective passions.
 
Our Events application is a welcomed addition designed to bring an enhanced presentation of the events happening in your space both on and offline. Community users can enjoy this interactive overview as an add-on to the traditional view. As a site admin, the overview page can be set as the new default in your AdminCP.
We are excited to bring the Events application to all Invision Community plans in an upcoming release.
Let us know what you think in the comments. 

You’ve got questions, and you’ve got answers.
One of the glorious benefits to running a thriving community is its ability to be self-sustainable. We’ve added new Solved features available on both standard and self-hosted plans. 
While you’re working on growing the community’s presence (and the bottom line), your members are busy connecting and engaging with one another. In addition to you and your team answering questions, peer-to-peer networking is an efficient way to increase support and quickly attend to your members’/clients’/customers’ needs. 
Invision Community’s previously existing Solutions feature allows a topic starter, as well as community moderators, to mark a reply inside a topic as the solution to the question. We’ve added a green block for the member who started the topic that encourages them to mark a response as the solution. This is only visible to them and not other members participating inside the topic. 


 
Here is what the new Solutions button looks like:


 
Not only did it receive a style update, but more importantly the topic starter can now receive periodic emails reminding them to revisit their topic and either re-engage until a solution is found, or mark a previously-posted answer as the solution. 
Community leaders have the ability to turn this feature off, or set the number of days before an email is sent (the default is set to 14 days).
Here is an example email:


 
We also added a Solved report in the Statistics section of your Admin Control Panel.
The report consists of daily snapshots taken within the community. The platform then records the percent of topics solved, as well as the average time it took to find a solution. This helps you understand pain points in your community, as well as what kinds of questions get answered and how long it took for a solution to come to light. 



Benefits of your community using Solutions:
Cuts support costs: Customers help one another so your team can focus elsewhere. Builds a library: Community answers are easily searchable & shareable for future customers. Gives props: Reward customers for answering questions with Achievements. Empowers members: Customers help themselves by asking questions and finding answers. The new Solutions features are available in an upcoming update to version 4.7 of our platform. 
The Solutions option is located in: Admin Control Panel -> Community -> Forums -> Forums -> Select desired Forum -> Edit -> Display Settings -> "Enable Solved?" Toggle + "Allow the topic starter to mark solved?" Toggle
Thoughts? Let us know what you think in the comments! 

Invision Community’s new Live Community features offer an immersive, real-time experience for members. 
Clients on select standard plans now have access to live components that drastically change how their users engage within the forum section of their community. 
These live features are included in the new Smart Community section in the Admin Control Panel. When enabled, Live Community allows a community to track and display hot spots where members are most enthralled. 


Admin Control Panel -> System -> Smart Community -> Features -> Live Community
 
Our Live Community components include:
Who’s viewing an area live Who’s typing a response live
Who’s Viewing 


Our new Who's Viewing feature shows a list of members who are viewing any area within the forums application.
Sound familiar? We previously created a "Recently Browsing" block that shows what members are viewing a topic, however that block was a snapshot over a small block of time. The new Who's Viewing feature shows a list of members who are viewing a topic (and when they leave) in the present moment. 

Who’s Typing


We also implemented a live Who’s Typing feature. If you're quick, you’ll see a member typing a reply in real-time when formulating your own reply at the form located near the bottom of a content item.
These live community features can enhance your community by inspiring members to stay engaged within the community for longer, as well as feel connected to the other registered members. 
Whether you’re patiently waiting for a comment to come through because the reply form indicates a member/multiple members are typing, or gauging who’s viewing what in real-time, Invision Community’s new live features will elevate your community’s experience in the here and now.
No time like the present; that's why it's a gift! The Live Community features are available in our new version, 4.7.1. 

Community managers and moderators have a simple but powerful new tool at their disposal: scheduling a topic's future publishing date.
Previously, if a community manager wanted to draft a topic for a future release, they would have to craft the content elsewhere. It wasn’t the best experience. After listening to client feedback, we implemented a path for those with moderator privileges to create topics now, but have them go live in the future. 
Set this new permissions setting in the Admin Control Panel -> Moderators -> Content -> Can set a future publishing date? 
Notice the Publish date and time fields at the bottom:


 
Here are a few examples of when this would be useful:
Welcoming new members
A community manager can compose a topic welcoming members from that week, but set it to go live the next week. It’s a powerful, engaging and visible way to acknowledge new sign-ups. Pair this with our new Alerts System.
Anniversaries
Big day coming up? Create content around it now, but set the topic's publish date on the actual day. 
Content calendar
If you are in charge of creating community content, budget a chunk of time towards creating engaging topics. Set their future publish dates apart so there’s space for members to engage accordingly. It also allows your team to visually see the content and weigh in with changes (or hoorays!) before members see it.
Related:
 
Announcements
Scheduling an announcement inside a topic, in tandem with our Announcements workflow functionality located in the Moderator Control Panel, allows community moderators to create space for feedback from loyalists. 
Promo campaign
As a community manager, time is a commodity. Setting up a promotional campaign for a future product release sets you up for success. When planning intricate marketing projects, organization and editing are paramount. Setting a future release date creates space to ensure the messaging is clear and effective.
This feature, available for all Invision Community clients, is available in 4.7.1 Beta 1 (out now). View our release notes.
Thoughts? Let us know what you think in the comments (preferably now 😉).

There’s a fine line between freedom of speech and censorship. 
Invision Community always aims to empower community leaders with options to encourage an open dialogue within a community, while including barriers for members who choose to ignore the guidelines. 
Invision Community’s latest release, 4.6.11, includes a simple but powerful new feature to help you shape your community’s tone. 
It’s called Block Submission.
Block submission stops a member’s message from being posted if it includes any word(s) added to your Word Filters list with the “Block Submission” option enabled. 
Word Filters, a previously existing feature, allows community owners to prohibit profanity in the community. If a member types a word included on the banned words list, the platform will automatically either...
Replace the word with something else you set Hold the post for moderation Or, with our new Block Submission feature, notify the member they must amend their post.  Located: ACP -> System -> Settings -> Posting -> Word Filters -> Add Word Filter
Here is an example:
I added the word “hate” to the Word Filters list in the Admin Control Panel and selected the Block Submission option. 
 

 
Now, when a member tries to post the word hate, a message pops up indicating it wasn’t published and why. 


 
The member must modify their comment in order for the post to go live. In this scenario, that would look like taking out the word hate.
Feel free to change the default warning message (the text located in the orange message bar above) to something better suited for your community - it's located in the Languages settings in your ACP. 


 
Why did we create Block Submission?
This feature not only helps automatically moderate content, but more importantly, it sets a precedent to members regarding what is (and isn’t) accepted. 
Gently notifying members that their comment doesn’t align with your community’s guidelines helps maintain the existing culture you’ve worked hard on cultivating, as well as your initiative to keep the language and sentiment positive. 
Interested in trying our block submission feature out? Please upgrade to 4.6.11!
If you don’t have an Invision Community license yet, please reach out to me and I’ll help get you started. 
Thoughts on our latest feature? Sound off in the comments (just make sure it passes our new vibe check 😉). 
 

Improving SEO with your community is a hot topic with community managers. Many minor tweaks can move the needle in the right direction, but the most significant changes come with increasing crawl efficiency.
I recently wrote about changes we made to Invision Community to improve crawl efficiency. By removing thin content pages and being laser-focused on what you want to be crawled, you present a more efficient site ready for crawling.
Crawl depth is another metric that impacts crawl efficiency. The more 'clicks' Google and other search engines have to make to get to your content; the less efficient your site is for crawling. With a community, this can present problems because using forums and child forums segments content and places it an extra click or two away from the home page. Segmenting is ideal when your community has defined content boundaries, but it can mean Google has to work harder to find your content.
We introduced a "fluid view" in a past release, which streams all of your community's topics into a single filterable view. This streamed view works well when you have a small number of forums, but it is less valuable when you have a more significant number.
Wouldn't it be perfect if you could have a fluid view per forum or category so you can stream the forum's topics with any child forum's topics in a single view?

With our latest release, you can do just that! In this example, I have a forum called "Ideation", and there are two child forums. The new feature enabled on a per-forum basis in the AdminCP allows the topics from all three forums to be streamed in a single view. As with the global fluid view mode, your members can toggle the filters to refine which forums you want the stream to include.

Showing the topics from multiple forums in a single unified stream is not only helpful for search engines as it reduces the crawl depth, but it also reduces helps your members find valuable content faster.
Update (July 14, 2022):  You asked and we listened! Thanks to valuable client feedback, we made an update to our fluid view feature included in our latest release, 4.6. To better the user experience, we improved the fluid-mode per forum filters to remove a page reload! We also reversed the filter checkbox status to make it clear which filters are being viewed. 
The Fluid View updates are available now. We'd love to hear your thoughts below!

See how long, on average, members ascend from one Rank to the next. 
Screen Recording 2022-07-20 at 14.58.14.mp4  
We are excited to have added this new chart to our existing statistics that shows Rank Progression. This addition, available for all plans, is included in an upcoming release of our latest version 4.7.
 
You can find it in your Admin Control Panel -> Stats -> Users -> Rank Progression.
Ranks display a members’ perceived value to the community. The higher a members’ Rank, the greater their influence. Members with higher ranks earned those through their engagement and participation in the community. Actions like commenting, reacting and should your community be utilizing the Achievement system, through those Rules that award points. The more points, the higher the rank.
Learn all about our Achievement System and Points in this previously shared Blog.
Why is our new Rank Time Progression chart important?
Understanding how long it takes members to move from rank to rank helps you strategize a user journey. You want meaningful contributors to feel rewarded for their engagement and participation in your community and receive an increase in their Rank.
This chart provides a better understanding of how long it takes members to change Ranks.
You will now be asking yourself insightful questions like:
Am I happy with that timeline? Are my members happy too? Are any ranks being achieved too quickly or not quick enough? Are the ranks that I want to be “exclusive” and reserved for my star members, appropriately adjusted and take long enough to achieve?  Ranks, Rules and all things Achievements can be adjusted and changed. Ask yourself these questions and make changes to better support and reward engagement from those valuable members.
Related: Help Guide on how to set up Ranks in your community


 
Let’s take a look at this chart again.
Here, the Rank Progression average shows a curve, meaning the time, on average, it takes a member to jump from rank to rank increases.
If a member reaches Grand Master faster than you intended, you’re now armed with information to adjust the Ranks.
Ultimately, the shape of the line on the chart depends on your goals.
Flat line = no time between ranks Rising straight line = similar amount of time between ranks Rising curved line = increasing amount of time between ranks This new addition tracks Ranks for all registered members from day one.
Want input setting new Rank Progression goals? Please post in our community forum or leave us a comment.
While you’re at it, feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think; we're looking forward to hearing from you!
 

See what members are currently most engaged with in real time in your community by using our new Trending Content feature included in our latest release, 4.7.0. 
Our new Trending Content feature, available on our Business & Corporate/Enterprise plans, automatically rounds up a list of engaging topics that are most active in the present moment within your community and proudly displays them for other members to see and contribute to. 
Trending Content is one of the best ways to stay on top of popular and current topics, as well as engage with other members in the here and now. It’s also a powerful method to inform search engines that your community is an authority in its niche because your members are constantly fueling the community fire.
How does the real time Trending Content feature work?
Our platform applies a value to different forms of engagement. This informs the Trending Content feature as to what it should display without delay.
This criteria is weighted and includes:
Replies: most valuable ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Topics that receive replies are the clearest sign a piece of content is trending.
Reactions: valuable ⭐️⭐
Your members are engaging with other members’ topics and replies. That’s great in helping to decide what is trending, but ultimately we want members to comment.
Views: somewhat valuable ⭐️
Visibility is important and plays a role in deciding whether a content item shows in the Trending Content section. 
 
The Trending Content may be visible in a block, or on your community's leaderboard.
Trending Content block:


 
Trending Content section on the leaderboard page:

 
The Trending Content feature may be turned on or off by visiting your Admin Control Panel (ACP) -> System -> Smart Community -> Features -> Trending Content.
 

 
Examples of useful Trending Content blocks in different types of communities:
 
Enterprise communities
If you’re in the corporate realm, displaying a list of trending content gives your influential clients and members an opportunity to see what’s shaping the ecosystem of your big-named brand. It also provides the company with an opportunity to monitor trends, then focus on more content like it to create another set of trending topics.
Educational communities
Display a list of trending content amongst your students. If there’s a particular question that captures the attention of your e-learning audience, chances are it’s engaging and thought-provoking. By including a Trending Content block in prominent areas of your community, students (and teachers) have an opportunity to weigh in and reach a solution together. 
Gaming communities
Include a Trending Content block inside your gaming community to drum up interest in new releases, share insider information and rumors about your favorite games and consoles and gauge what your fellow gamer peers are engaged with. 
Support communities
Should a critical support issue arise, your team will see what content items your clients are contributing to, assess, then solve.
News communities
Don’t be the last to know. When breaking news strikes, members tend to flood to the content item and share their two cents. Including a Trending Content block in a news community is the most efficient route to quickly keep your members in the loop regarding live news. 

Our new Trending Content feature is available in version 4.7.0. 
Thoughts? Drop us a line in the comments and let us know what you think. Should this blog post receive great engagement, you'll see it in our Trending Content feature located in our community forum. See you there!

We have updated a few of our embed options in version 4.1.9. Our goal was to make the embeds more user friendly and give admins more control over embed in general.
When you paste in a link from common services like YouTube, Twitter, and so on the system tries to embed a nice box instead of just a link. For example, if I pasted in this link:
https://twitter.com/invisionps/status/708019275521363968 It would create this box:
New in version 4.1.9 you can now optionally choose to revert the automatic embed back to a simple text link.
So in the above example, when I pasted in my Twitter link, I saw a bar come up giving me the option to revert back to a link. This is useful when you do not want a formatted embed box but instead simply want to reference something and get the visitor to click the link. It is also useful when you want to reference something as part of a single sentence and not have a break in the flow that an embedded content box creates.
There is also a new AdminCP setting to completely disable embeds across your entire Suite. Some clients have communities where they like to keep things down to just simple, plain text. You could always disable formatting option button in the editor and now you can also disable automated embeds.
As a reminder, the following formats are supported with our embed system. Simply paste a link to any of these services and you will get a nice, rich embed experience that really encourages engagement on your community.
College Humor Facebook Flickr Gfycat Google+ Hulu Instagram SoundCloud Spotify Ted Twitter Vimeo Vine YouTube You can also embed links to anything inside of the IPS Community Suite. So you could paste a link to another forum topic in the comment on a Gallery image and it will show a preview of that topic rather than a simple link.
We are always open to suggestions so feel free to post in our feedback forum. Thank you!

To celebrate Invision Community turning 20-years-old (an eternity in Internet years), I interviewed the company's founding fathers.
Ahh the good ol' days. Remember simpler times?
This new video interview touches on Invision Community's past, present and future thanks to the invaluable insight from  @Charles, @Matt and @Lindy. 
 
In our chat together, these gentlemen...
 
Take a nostalgic trip down memory lane and reflect on the company's origins Explain the power of community amidst the social media boom Offer advice for new community leaders on how to grow Share some of the biggest changes to the platform Recant fond memories from the earlier days Reveal a teaser of what's next for Invision Community  
Noteworthy quotes:
Charles:
 
Lindy:
 
Matt:
 
Thoughts on the interview? We'd love to hear from you in the comments! 🎂 

Take control of your community messenger inbox.
Topics, replies and reviews are an incredible way to engage with members in a community, but sometimes a conversation needs to be had in private. 
Invision Community's built-in messenger is a powerful system that allows members to privately message another member, or a group of members, directly within your community. 
However, allowing your members unrestricted access to reach out could clog up your community inbox (and mind!). There are times when you may want a little space from receiving new messages. For example, when you are… 
Going on vacation Working on a project that requires your complete attention Needing a moment to catch up Currently, your only option is to disable the entire messaging system. That is effective, but it means you cannot engage with existing messages, send replies or message other members.
We’ve developed a solution! 
Invision Community 4.7.0 allows for more refined control over your messenger by allowing you to disable the inbox. 
The benefit of this is that you can continue existing conversations and start conversations with others while preventing anyone from messaging you (except staff members) either directly or via the Alerts System.


 
The "Disable my messenger" link has been replaced with "Disable my inbox". The warning pop-up makes it clear what this action will do.


 
Of course, administrators can still completely disable the messenger for themselves and other members of the community, which prevents them from accessing the messenger entirely.
The new disable your inbox feature, included in Invision Community 4.7.0, will be available to all in the near future.
Thoughts on the disabling the inbox feature? Let us know what you think in the comments!
 
Related:

Invision Community’s forthcoming release includes an exciting new feature available for all. 
Announcing the Alert System! 🚨™
The Alert System is a new tool for community managers to communicate with their members. There are times when a community manager needs to bring information to the attention of either a single user, or a group of users; when existing systems such as PMs or warning points are not suitable. So, we developed a happy medium to empower you. 
The new alert system offers multiple ways to engage with single users or multiple member groups with a message that must be acknowledged and dismissed before further engagement with the community.
Here are a few examples of when a community leader can use the Alert System for individual members:
Moderator actions 
A moderator moves a topic and wants to inform the topic starter that the topic has been moved and why. 
Get ahead of warnings
A member left a comment that doesn’t justify a warning point, nor should it warrant a private message. You want to kindly remind them of the community guidelines. 

Community leaders may wish to send information to an entire member group. This may to warn them of new limits, or to notify support changes, etc. 
Here are a few examples of when a community leader can use the Alert System for groups:
Updates to community guidelines
After reviewing and updating your community guidelines or terms of service, you can send an alert to all affected member groups outlining the changes, so they are aware. As the message needs to be dismissed before any further interaction with the community, you can be sure it has been read before any more posts are made.

This example shows an alert with send anonymously switched on.
 
Welcome message
To strengthen your onboarding flow, you may like to send all new members a welcome message to introduce yourself and your team, along with some helpful information to help get them settled in.
This example shows an alert with the option to reply, with send anonymously turned off.
Heads up
Remind a group of a permanent account-related change, like their subscription will be decreasing/increasing. 
New forums added
After consultation with your community, you want to add some new discussion areas for your VIP Members. You can now send an alert targeted to members in that group to let them know where the new forums are and what their purpose is.
Let's chat
You notice that a great community member is having a bad day. Instead of reaching for punitive tools, you can send them an alert that they have to reply to before being allowed to continue engaging in the community.

These are just a few examples; of course, the alerts functionality has a lot of flexibility built in. 
Alerts are managed from the Moderator's Control Panel.

 
Let us take a look at the different areas that can be configured.

 
Dates
Each alert has a start date, and this date can be in the future. This is especially useful if you have an event coming up you want to showcase. You can optionally set an expiration date to only serve the alert for members that visit between the start and end date. You can also leave it running indefinitely for uses such as the welcome message.
Send to
This section allows you to choose to send to a single user or to a single or multiple groups. If you are sending to groups, you can further fine-tune the deliverability by choosing to send to everyone currently registered and to new members when they register, or you can target just new members (to be precise, this will target members who register after the alert date), this option is ideal for the welcome message alert.
Send as yourself or anonymously 
You can choose to send the alert anonymously or from yourself. There are times when you want a personal touch and times when you need more of a system style alert, perhaps when notifying of guideline updates. Or, if the message is general, or you want to protect members of your team, send the alert anonymously. 
Replies
If you choose to send the alert personally, then you can allow the member to reply, force the member to respond to dismiss the alert or remove the ability to reply. For a welcome message, you'd likely want to allow replies which then will create a new personal message between you and the member. 
We have built the system to be very flexible to cover a wide range of uses where you want to directly engage with a member or group of members and be confident that they have seen the alert before any further engagement in the community. Alerts can be used to strengthen onboarding, notify sections of your community about exciting new features and changes or even create an open dialogue after a punitive measure such as having a posting time-out.
This feature is coming to Invision Community 4.7, across all platforms.
Thoughts on our new Alert System?! Drop us a line in the comments and let us know what you think.

If you've already got a Wordpress website, and have recently added an Invision Community, you might want to show recent posts or topics right on your Wordpress site.
You might think this involves complex programming and custom themes, but thanks to some Pages magic, it's a very simple task that you can do in under 5 minutes.
This very short video walks you through the process.
If you'd prefer a written step by step, then head over to our help guides.
As you can see, the whole process is very quick and very easy. Adding the latest topics on your site is a great way to drive discussion into your Invision Community.
Let us know if you have any questions!

Twenty years ago today, Invision Community was founded and within months the first version of Invision Community was released. Little did we know, this would be the start of a remarkable journey spanning several decades.
Our first version appeared shortly after we founded the company. It might be hard to imagine a time before social media and YouTube, but when we started out, the web looked very different.

The first version of Invision Community was called Invision Board, reflecting the popular term for forums back in the early 2000s. It was full featured and you may recognise some elements that persist today.
Like today, it even had a separate control panel where you could create new areas of discussion and customise the theme.

Twenty years is a long time and we've continued to adapt with the ever-changing needs of community managers. We've seen the rise of social media impact how people consume content and found ways to compliment Twitter and Facebook by offering a place for long-form permanent discussion.
Several elements remain from those early days but the concepts behind the theme have change significantly. New workflows, UI elements and views have helped the platform stay fresh and we've certainly innovated a few features that have since become industry standard over that time.
I can't express how proud I am of what we've built together. From those humble beginnings working until 2am to growing a creative and talented team around our passion for community.
I'm still as excited today as I was back in 2002. This year will see us build and release new tools to help guide and inform community managers. Our community platform continues to go from strength to strength.
Of course, the platform is only one part of Invision Community. Over the last twenty years I've been grateful to get to know many of you and watch your lives unfold.
This is as pure as community can get and I'm privileged to be part of it.

We have a few other surprises to celebrate our twentieth anniversary. We can't wait to share them!

I'd love to hear your memories of Invision Community! When did you first use our products and what was your community for? Please let me know in the comments below.

We are happy to release the fourth beta of IPS Community Suite 4.0!
 
IPS welcomes any clients who enjoy testing beta software to participate and post bugs in our bug tracker. These beta releases help us to provide a more stable final release and the more people who participate in testing the better it is for all.
 
This release makes available:
Forums Blog Gallery Downloads Calendar Commerce (formerly IP.Nexus) Pages (formerly IP.Content)  
The upgrade system is now available and you can upgrade from IP.Board 3.4.7 to test this system However: do not upgrade your live community! IPS does not provide technical support or services for beta releases. You can append "-TESTINSTALL" on to the end of your license key to allow to a separate install for test purposes. More information on license keys...
 
Downloading
 
You can download IPS Community Suite 4.0.0 Beta 4 in the client area. Go to your Purchases section, select your license, and click the download link. IPS Community in the Cloud clients do not yet have access to the beta.
 
You will be able to upgrade from Beta 4 to Beta 5 when it is released and to all future betas through final release.
  
Note: If you are already running Beta 3 you can upgrade in your AdminCP. You will see a notice on your Dashboard. If you do not see it go to Applications and click check for update.

Branded communities mobilize your impassioned fans and customers. 
If you’re even a little familiar with community building, you’ve probably seen marketing jargon about why owning your own community (and not exclusively relying on social media) is absolutely imperative for growth. 
Relying on social media is a gamble. 
At any given time the social media giants can take away your platform and following you had spent years building.  Meaningful ongoing conversations aren’t really a thing. No customization; your social account won’t have different functionality than everyone else (there’s a few exceptions with Instagram, but it’s based on follower count). With a community, you can grant your members far more flexibility and power.  Companies that thrive know of social media’s limitations. They opt to also include a community component to their brand because it’s a serious advantage. They use social media as a tool to drive traffic to their community and get to know their clients/customers on a deeper level. 
Owning your own branded community... 
Strengthens brand identity. Duh, but not really. I’d say most companies fail to establish a real look and feel. This is done by evoking an emotion in the customer through an intentional balance of visuals (colors, logos, fonts) alongside experiences the company, along with the community, creates together.  Builds trust with the consumer. Getting digital face time with your customers, sharing content and offering value on a consistent basis are the building blocks of trust between company and consumer. Gain this, and become an authority in your industry.  Provides a deeper understanding of customers' needs. Save money on market research. Tap into your audience's needs free of charge.  Encourages an open dialogue. Customers want to feel heard! Create an environment that's a two-way street so their thoughts and feelings don't fall into the Internet abyss. Creates visibility. At the heart of any business are the customers. Show them your true colors.
  Your brand’s look & feel matters
Now that we’ve nailed down the ‘why,’ let’s touch on the nuts and bolts, err… colors and fonts. 
Don’t underestimate the power of a cohesive and imaginative visual associated with your brand. 
When you think of McDonald’s, does your brain fire off a pair of golden arches and a ketchup red color combo? When thinking about Coca Cola, maybe a cursive font bubbles up. Apple is internationally admired for their visuals and product presentation.
These aren’t accidents.
Companies spend millions of dollars on marketing to perfect the brand’s look and feel. 
Your community should aim to feel as immersive as possible through its branding. 
Your community, powered by Invision Community, was designed with that in mind. In the admin control panel, community leaders can design their own theme, including colors, fonts, headers, footers and logo. 
Take a look at how some of our clients transformed their communities into something extra special:
 

Squarespace
 

Fiverr
 

Corsair
 
Those communities enlist our enterprise services. However, if you don’t have the marketing budget just yet to create a totally custom look and feel, we have a new option at your disposal starting today.
We just launched a theme service available for all Invision Community clients on our standard plans. We’ll create you a theme based on certain criteria and keep it updated throughout future platform updates. 
If that’s something of interest, please visit this new page on our website and reach out to us to get started.
Design your new theme today.
Owning a branded community doesn’t need to be complicated. If your idea is solid, and your intentions are to unite and connect like-minded people, then you’re golden. 
Are you  interested in a branded community? Do you have a community that could use some extra attention? Are you ready to launch a new community but don’t know where to start? Drop us a line in the comments and we’ll respond to you.
 

2021 was a big year for Invision Community. 🎉 
We launched no-code automation with our Zapier integration, added web push notifications, offline support, stock replies and new reporting metrics.
We also improved spam management, SEO crawl efficiency, Clubs, Activity Streams and introduced a native gamification system named Achievements.
Not to mention the team grew! 👋  @Matt Finger @Marshall Slemp (and me 🙋🏼‍♂️).
We have lots to look forward to in the new year, but before we reveal more let's take a trip down memory lane. 
2021 was one of our best-performing years ever! Here are some highlights:
 
Community Activity 2021
We saw an influx of members contributing to our community support forum. 3,832 members submitted new content, followed something, or reacted to something in the community.
 

 
 
Points earned:
Thanks to the introduction of the Achievements system, members had the opportunity to earn points for contributing to the support community. In total, the community racked up 361,363 points. 📈




 
Topics created:
Members fired off more than 4000 topics, including questions, feature suggestions and community management tips. 😳 



 
New posts:
Inside those topics included an array of replies. 31,488 posts to be exact. 😱 


 
 

Top 10 members with the most amount of Reactions given:
Members also engaged with the community using our Reputation system (think of it as our "likes" 👍 system). Here are the top 10 members who gave the most Reactions. 


@sobrenome @Jordan Miller @SeNioR- @Linux-Is-Best @OptimusBain @Matt @Adriano Faria @Davyc @Marc Stridgen @Unienc
 
Top 10 members with the most amount of Reactions received:
If a member's topic or reply is well received, it earns Reputation using our Reactions system. Here are the top 10 members who received the most love. ❤️ 



@Matt @Adriano Faria @Nathan Explosion @CoffeeCake @opentype @Marc Stridgen @Daniel F @Davyc @Jimi Wikman 
 
Members who earned the most badges:  
Participating in the community also earns members special badges. You get a badge and you get a badge! ✅ 
 

@CoffeeCake @TAMAN @opentype @PPlanet @SUBRTX @Sonya* @Afrodude
 
Top Marketplace contributors:
Shout-out to our crazy talented third-party developers who take time out of their busy schedules to innovate and create downloads for other Invision Community clients to use! Here are the top Marketplace contributes: 
 

@Nathan Explosion @Michael.J @Miss_B @IBTheme @Kirill Gromov @ReyDev @Adriano Faria @shahed 
 
 
 
Most active forum:
You have questions and we have answers. Our support system shifted to our help & support forum and it paid off big time! 
 

 
 
Thanks to everyone who contributed to making Invision Community a better place. Whether you're an active poster in our community support forums, or a customer who lives to learn and absorb, we greatly appreciate you. Cheers to the exciting ventures on the way in 2022! 🎉 
 

Front-facing support creates visible opportunities for clients to find answers to both frequently asked and uncommon questions. 
Earlier this year, Invision Community lifted the veil off support, shifting from a private, 1-on-1, email-driven medium to open topics in our community support forum. 
We found ourselves answering the same questions because we hadn’t fully leaned into community support, which also gives our existing clients opportunities to weigh in with solutions. 
While we still do convert a chunk of community support questions to a private ticket, most issues are resolved for all to see. This is important to note because it's created an invaluable resource for others who may be searching for similar answers. 
We have:
Improved support staff time management Improved retention Improved support response times for clients Built a resource library and knowledge base Forged stronger connections
A few key stats in our support areas: 
71% solved (+80%) in 3 months 9 hours is our average time to find a solution (50% faster) in 3 months 14% of topics became a ticket
  Feel free to mirror what we do for your own community! This is done through four key steps: 
 
1) Identify, 2) Assess, 3) Execute, 4) Follow up
 


1) Identify:
The first step is to identify the client’s problem or concerns. Our team keeps an eye on the support forums and anticipate new topics are incoming. 
We are equipped with any stored access details, and cloud access details, to login to a client’s community and take a look if needed (with their consent). This can aid us in identifying the issue.

2) Assess:
After assessing the issue and gathering information, we put on our critical thinking caps. One of several things may happen:
A solution is provided More information may be requested A ticket can be created if needed for more sensitive issues, or items needing more detailed review Sometimes our support team needs to investigate an issue further. That requires us to take things off the community and open a specialized ticket for our tier two support team to take a closer look. 

3) Execute
Now that we’ve created a path towards finding a solution, we get to work. 
Each ticket can result in one of three outcomes: 
It's resolved It needs to be further investigated Or, it’s a bug
Bugs
Hey, they happen. If an item is determined to be a bug, that bug is also added as a follow up item and the topic is marked as a known issue.

When we follow up on a bug item, we go through a few processes. 
Our developers will work through these bugs to get them resolved, in order of priority/severity. Once done, they are reviewed and added to a new release.
Fun fact: Every week, we list out all of the platform updates and fixes in our Community Manager's Lounge!
As items are fixed, our support staff will pick up on this through the followup process. The ticket will be changed from “known issue” to “in future release” to show its status. The follow up item status is also changed to show it being in the next release.
Upon release of a new version, the above items are gone through to mark them as solved, then we inform the client that the issue is resolved.
We also have weekly development meetings to discuss items with developers, as well as weekly support staff meetings to discuss issues with any support processes for that week.

4) Followup
Following up with a client after we found a solution helps us stay connected to our community and improves retention.
We like to check back in a few days, a week, or even more depending on what the nature of the issue was. The aim is to provide a working solution to the client then ensure that, well… it worked! 
If an item is escalated, we have an internal follow up system that allows us to keep an eye on your ticket.
 
Shifting the way you handle support, from behind-the-scenes to center stage, has been one of the most profound and rewarding changes to Invision Community. Not only is our support community a wealth of knowledge and saves our clients time, but it also creates trust with our clients because we’re held accountable. 
How do you handle support in your community? Drop us a line in the comments; we’d love to hear from (and see) you!

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to moderating/guiding an online community. 
Each digital world includes its own series of hurdles to overcome. As a community gains momentum and the registration count climbs higher, community moderators are presented with new challenges. These tasks become inherently more complex as a result, siphoning precious resources and oftentimes paint moderators into a corner.
Take back the brush and illustrate a new scene with these supportive tips on how to better engage with your community. These pro-moderation tactics aim to foster a greater sense of togetherness and unity while also acknowledging individual members for their contributions. 
 
Clear and concise community guidelines. 
These are the building blocks for a solid foundation. Community guidance is less about different means of restriction and more about the ability to express one’s thoughts and feelings in a healthy way. All communities will inevitably run into toxic trolls, but instead of exerting energy on the negative, give praise and accolades to the positive.

As we mentioned in a previous blog post about community guidance, show your community in the guidelines how you want them to post by contributing that way yourself. That sets a precedent. From there, you'll notice other community members participating in a way that is similar to you

(TL;DR lead by example).
 
Curate member content.
Curating member content is the secret sauce to accelerated growth when it comes to community building. Featuring your members' posts publicly demonstrates your desire to embrace participating members. It’s one thing to comment on members’ topics, it’s another to feature and promote them for all to see. It gives added depth to your community by amplifying differing opinions, builds trust and encourages others to partake. It’ll take extra effort on your end to manually curate content (be selective regarding what topics you want to represent your community); establishing multiple authorities in your community builds momentum.

Remember, people come for the content, but stay for the community. Give them both!


 
Moderate on the offense.
Moderating has a bad rap. Generally speaking, most view it as a prohibitive tool. A member posts profanity? Moderate! A topic goes live in the wrong section? Moderate! A spam bot infiltrates the latest blog entry? Moderate, moderate, moderate! That aspect of community building will always exist, but setting up automations will save you time and money. More importantly, it creates an elevated user experience because your attention is spent engaging with your members. 

We have some powerful tools at your disposal to help, including a designated ‘automatic moderation’ section in your Admin Control Panel. Here, community leaders can set up rules that will trigger automatic content moderation. For example, you could create a rule that automatically hides content when it receives three or more user-submitted reports. If your members collectively agree another member’s post is problematic, and three or more of them report it, the post is hidden from public view until a moderator has a chance to review it. 

Moderation doesn’t have to be a dirty word. And if it does, we have an automatic moderation tool for that, too. 
 
Publicly recognizing members.
Members who refuse to follow your community guidelines likely won’t fall in line with a public reprimand. Either privately message them your concerns or issue a warning only the moderation team can see.

Instead, focus your attention on recognizing and rewarding contributing members. There’s a number of ways you can energize morale, including responding to members’ positive posts, manually or automatically awarding badges with our Achievements system, highlighting engaged members in a sidebar block, showcasing Leaderboard champs or even interviewing your MVPs. The idea is to approach community guidance with open arms – not a closed fist.
 

 
Team work makes the dream work.
There’s a reason it’s cliché. Organizing then empowering a moderation team is essential. Once on the same page in terms of expectations and processes, a community leader is then faced with the daunting task of relinquishing control as their team gears up to congratulate and moderate. 

Your moderation team is only one moving part of a well-oiled machine. There are times, especially in the early days of a community where, as the community leader, you’re doing most of the heavy lifting. However, there will come a time when the community supports you in return and shares the weight. It’s important to recognize those instances and publicly acknowledge them!

The world has enough doom and gloom; be an inspiration to your community and in return they’ll inspire you. 
Do you have a community management tip to share? Drop it into the comments. We’d love to hear from you! 

Header photo: Unsplash

No matter how good your content is, how accurate your keywords are or how precise your microdata is, inefficient crawling reduces the number of pages Google will read and store from your site.
Search engines need to look at and store as many pages that exist on the internet as possible. There are currently an estimated 4.5 billion web pages active today. That's a lot of work for Google.
It cannot look and store every page, so it needs to decide what to keep and how long it will spend on your site indexing pages.
Right now, Invision Community is not very good at helping Google understand what is important and how to get there quickly. This blog article runs through the changes we've made to improve crawling efficiency dramatically, starting with Invision Community 4.6.8, our November release.

The short version
This entry will get a little technical. The short version is that we remove a lot of pages from Google's view, including user profiles and filters that create faceted pages and remove a lot of redirect links to reduce the crawl depth and reduce the volume of thin content of little value. Instead, we want Google to focus wholly on topics, posts and other key user-generated content.
Let's now take a deep dive into what crawl budget is, the current problem, the solution and finally look at a before and after analysis. Note, I use the terms "Google" and "search engines" interchangeably. I know that there are many wonderful search engines available but most understand what Google is and does.
Crawl depth and budget
In terms of crawl efficiency, there are two metrics to think about: crawl depth and crawl budget. The crawl budget is the number of links Google (and other search engines) will spider per day. The time spent on your site and the number of links examined depend on multiple factors, including site age, site freshness and more. For example, Google may choose to look at fewer than 100 links per day from your site, whereas Twitter may see hundreds of thousands of links indexed per day.
Crawl depth is essentially how many links Google has to follow to index the page. The fewer links to get to a page, is better. Generally speaking, Google will reduce indexing links more than 5 to 6 clicks deep.
The current problem #1: Crawl depth
A community generates a lot of linked content. Many of these links, such as permalinks to specific posts and redirects to scroll to new posts in a topic, are very useful for logged in members but less so to spiders. These links are easy to spot; just look for "&do=getNewComment" or "&do=getLastComment" in the URL. Indeed, even guests would struggle to use these convenience links given the lack of unread tracking until logged in.  Although they offer no clear advantage to guests and search engines, they are prolific, and following the links results in a redirect which increases the crawl depth for content such as topics.
The current problem #2: Crawl budget and faceted content
A single user profile page can have around 150 redirect links to existing content. User profiles are linked from many pages. A single page of a topic will have around 25 links to user profiles. That's potentially 3,750 links Google has to crawl before deciding if any of it should be stored. Even sites with a healthy crawl budget will see a lot of their budget eaten up by links that add nothing new to the search index. These links are also very deep into the site, adding to the overall average crawl depth, which can signal search engines to reduce your crawl budget.
Filters are a valuable tool to sort lists of data in particular ways. For example, when viewing a list of topics, you can filter by the number of replies or when the topic was created. Unfortunately, these filters are a problem for search engines as they create faceted navigation, which creates duplicate pages.

The solution
There is a straightforward solution to solve all of the problems outlined above.  We can ask that Google avoids indexing certain pages. We can help by using a mix of hints and directives to ensure pages without valuable content are ignored and by reducing the number of links to get to the content. We have used "noindex" in the past, but this still eats up the crawl budget as Google has to crawl the page to learn we do not want it stored in the index.
Fortunately, Google has a hint directive called "nofollow", which you can apply in the <a href> code that wraps a link. This sends a strong hint that this link should not be read at all. However, Google may wish to follow it anyway, which means that we need to use a special file that contains firm instructions for Google on what to follow and index.
This file is called robots.txt. We can use this file to write rules to ensure search engines don't waste their valuable time looking at links that do not have valuable content; that create faceted navigational issues and links that lead to a redirect.
Invision Community will now create a dynamic robots.txt file with rules optimised for your community, or you can create custom rules if you prefer.

The new robots.txt generator in Invision Community
Analysis: Before and after
I took a benchmark crawl using a popular SEO site audit tool of my test community with 50 members and around 20,000 posts, most of which were populated from RSS feeds, so they have actual content, including links, etc. There are approximately 5,000 topics visible to guests.
Once I had implemented the "nofollow" changes, removed a lot of the redirect links for guests and added an optimised robots.txt file, I completed another crawl.
Let's compare the data from the before and after.
First up, the raw numbers show a stark difference.

Before our changes, the audit tool crawled 176,175 links, of which nearly 23% were redirect links. After, just 6,389 links were crawled, with only 0.4% being redirection links. This is a dramatic reduction in both crawl budget and crawl depth. Simply by guiding Google away from thin content like profiles, leaderboards, online lists and redirect links, we can ask it to focus on content such as topics and posts.

Note: You may notice a large drop in "Blocked by Robots.txt" in the 'after' crawl despite using a robots.txt for the first time. The calculation here also includes sharer images and other external links which are blocked by those sites robots.txt files. I added nofollow to the external links for the 'after' crawl so they were not fetched and then blocked externally.

As we can see in this before, the crawl depth has a low peak between 5 and 7 levels deep, with a strong peak at 10+.

After, the peak crawl depth is just 3. This will send a strong signal to Google that your site is optimised and worth crawling more often.
Let's look at a crawl visualisation before we made these changes. It's easy to see how most content was found via table filters, which led to a redirect (the red dots), dramatically increasing crawl depth and reducing crawl efficiency.

Compare that with the after, which shows a much more ordered crawl, with all content discoverable as expected without any red dots indicating redirects.

Conclusion
SEO is a multi-faceted discipline. In the past, we have focused on ensuring we send the correct headers, use the correct microdata such as JSON-LD and optimise meta tags. These are all vital parts of ensuring your site is optimised for crawling. However, as we can see in this blog that without focusing on the crawl budget and crawl efficiency, even the most accurately presented content is wasted if it is not discovered and added into the search index.
These simple changes will offer considerable advantages to how Google and other search engines spider your site.
The features and changes outlined in this blog will be available in our November release, which will be Invision Community 4.6.8.