sadams101

PS - How are your topic speed tests with 4.6?

@Steve Jabba For me the conclusion has been having to do lots of custom work on the mobile side to get my site to score just ok, maybe averaging 75 on topic pages in mobile now. Without all the custom work I would be getting scores of 35-45. I have not yet upgraded to 4.6 because I never upgrade quickly to an IPS new version. From my tests of this site which is running 4.6 there are still lots of site speed issues in mobile.

Thanks, I do understand that content is king and focus on this and a lot of other things as well, but the ante has been up'ed by Google now, it's both content AND many other factors, and site speed, errors, not running outdated Java or code, etc., are now, I believe, just a important as content. Google has a reason for this too, increasing efficiency of them crawling your site (they have a crawl budget for each site) saves them money by reducing power usage, and it is greener and better for the planet (although the former reason is probably the right one--it saves them money = bandwidth).

@Jimi Wikman, yes, Alexa Rank is still important, especially after Amazon bought them. It's probably more important now than ever, especially if you ever try to sell your Web site. The 90 day time frame covered in the Alexa rankings pretty much matches up with the period of my March upgrade, and it shows the decline and recovery from the worst of the site speed and html errors (IPS must have taken my post seriously about the 120+ warnings per topic page in this forum, as they have now fixed most of them). But this isn't the first time I've experienced this, as I've run upgrades in the past, and have had similar experiences. But seriously, if you don't believe me about this, perhaps check with SEO companies: https://cognitiveseo.com/blog/22865/page-speed-seo/#:~:text=The simple answer is that,rate and reducing dwell time. or with Google directly (this started in 2018, and as you may know, they typically add more weight to this as time goes by): https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2018/07/search-ads-speed You mention that "they realize that position 600 is pretty much the same as 12000 because no one will see it anyway," but if they have a slow web site they will never have a shot at a first or second page search ranking no matter how great their content...they will be shut out by the algorithm. The only chance you have at ever getting first page rankings on any key words is by jumping through Google's hoops, and they have even created tools to help you do this, and this is the tool I focus on because it's what Googlebot is based on: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/ I agree that it's hard for individuals to try to take software like IPB's and optimize it for speed, but what I am saying here is that I should not have to do this at all--IPB should do this. By not doing it they are pretty much guaranteeing that anyone using their software will never achieve high Google rankings, no matter how great the site, and how great the content. @Thomas P I don't have a paid GTmetrix account so I can only run desktop free tests there, however, to me the only speed tests that matter are Google's, which uses Lighthouse as their test engine. I did just compare both our sites, and again, I never use my home page to test, and always use a topic page, as that makes up the vast majority of my site, and yours as well. Even with all the ads loading on my site I clearly have a much better score from the comparison test I just ran below, but again, my focus is the horrible mobile performance of IPB, which will hurt your rankings far more than the desktop performance. I suspect that if we compare the same two mobile pages in GTMetrix you would get an F and I would get a B or C:

I've seen dramatic improvement in both site traffic and keyword rank by making SEO changes over the 25 years my site's been online. I've seen huge changes up and down depending on issues I've fixed or new issues that surfaced. For example, I saw a HUGE drop in my rankings that began on the very day that I upgraded my site from 4.4 to 4.5 on March 26 (but I ran some pre upgrade tests March 2-10 which also show), due to: 1) Site speed issues which I had mostly resolved in 4.4; 2) Site errors; In fact, during the exact time period covered by the Google Core Web Vitals below, my site dropped from a global rank of 228K to 315K. a 27% drop! Did I see this drop in traffic, hell yes I did, I lost over 100K unique visitors per month, and the number of accounts created, posts made, etc. all dropped by over 30%. What has changed since then? I fixed all the HTML errors--there are literally dozens per page (for which there is absolutely no excuse), and got my mobile page speed scoring above 70% average, now pushing closer to 80%...that's it. Before this I paid for plugins to also fix all the unexplained, unnecessary 301 redirects that are inherent in the blocks, sharing links, page pagination, etc. Internal 301 redirects are just toxic for SEO...no two ways about it. Any SEO person worth their salt would tell you this. I had 10-20 301 redirects per page average before using plugins created by @DawPi fixed them (no downsides whatsoever...all links function perfectly, just no redirects--all the silly ?do=find stuff). Each major SEO fix I've done has shown clearly visible results in traffic, rank, etc. I've reported all of them on this forum, and all to IPB directly, and I get the usual replies...the usual crew jump in to tell me none of this really matters, it's no big deal, etc. Great...maybe for your site, but not mine. You're either in the software business to make the best software for your customers, and SEO is now a huge part of that, or you're not. IPS has the power to implement all the changes into the software that I paid a few thousand dollars to fix these issues, why not do this for everyone and help everyone's SEO and rank? Instead we get badges...great! Badges get me more members...NOT! The bottom Alexa chart tracks my recovery, as @Adlago has rolled out all the site speed fixes over the last couple of months.

If you are serious about this I recommend that you contact @Adlago, as he's my speed consultant. For what it is worth, IPS could fairly easily implement all that I've done into any current of future versions of their software, but it's apparently not a concern for them.

Are you really asking me to explain why SEO is important? You can ignore Google's ranking metrics at your own peril, but for a company whose sole product is making software for others, when they ignore this it affects everyone who uses their software, and it affects everyone's page rank in Google. Maybe you should ask yourself why you have any Web sites on the Internet at all?

For the record I am using the default skin, and not a custom skin. I do have a custom footer, and a custom menu, as well as other plugins. I think we all know that the mobile site speed scores are what affect rankings the most now. While your home page score looks pretty ok, not great, let's face it, 90%+ of your entire site, like mine, consists of topics, so those are the most important scores for Google site speed ranking. Take a look at one of your thread page scores for mobile, and this is exactly what I saw after upgrading to 4.5, so I'm not criticizing your site in any way: Even the makers of this software, who are using the next version of this software 4.6, are still doing horrible for site speed...see one of their threads below: The architecture of the site needs to be changed because the CSS loads EVERYTHING for the mobile site, and EVERYTHING for the desktop site. There are many other issues that are causing this, but IPS has promised faster speed scores, but 4.5 and 4.6 are both terrible. PS - I won't even go into the number of W3 html errors in the software, which also affect ranking. Most are easily fixed as I've done...I reported these to IPS as well, but it's always going to be fixed in their next version (4.6 has even more errors!). These also affect rankings. https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mcseboard.de%2Ftopic%2F220055-windows-10-kein-reconnect-bei-netzlaufwerk%2F

It has taken me ~3 months since upgrading to 4.5 (working with @Adlago) to recover my site speed, and eliminate the dozens of W3 html errors inherent in the standard version of IPB, and I won't be stopping until I'm in the 90% area for mobile (I'm currently at 97-98% for desktop). I'm just shocked that these issue continue in the latest versions, and in some ways were actually worse and harder to deal with in 4.5 than in 4.4.

There seems to be a bug in the newest version after I upgraded to 4.5 IPB. If you have more than one ad, for example an ad that shows after the 2nd topic, and another after the 5th, only the first ad will show. The 2nd, or 3rd ad will not show.

Each topic in my forum that has more than one page, including topics on this forum (which is 4.6 right?), throws multiple html errors due to the page having two instances of the keys used in the pagination, which are displayed at both the top and bottom of the topic. They only way I could correct those errors was to remove this code from the forums > front > topics > topic template. You can see it here: https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Finvisioncommunity.com%2Fforums%2Ftopic%2F407405-upgrade-from-ip-34x-to-ips40-updated%2F and by the way, you've got 124 other errors and warnings on your 4.6 version, which is very bad for SEO...compare to: https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.celiac.com%2Fforums%2Ftopic%2F154714-has-anyone-gotten-covid-shots-yet%2F Do you have plans to fix these and the many other errors I see in the 4.6 software? Code removed: {{if ( \count( $topic->commentMultimodActions() ) && ( $topic->posts > 1 OR $topic->mapped('unapproved_comments') > 0 OR $topic->mapped('hidden_comments') > 0 ) ) || $pagination}} <div class="ipsBox ipsResponsive_pull ipsPadding:half ipsClearfix ipsClear ipsMargin_bottom"> {{if \count( $topic->commentMultimodActions() )}} <ul class="ipsButtonRow ipsPos_right ipsClearfix sm:ipsMargin_bottom:half"> <li> <a class="ipsJS_show" href="#elCheck_menu" id="elCheck" title='{lang="select_rows_tooltip"}' data-ipsTooltip data-ipsAutoCheck data-ipsAutoCheck-context="#elPostFeed" data-ipsMenu data-ipsMenu-activeClass="ipsButtonRow_active"> <span class="cAutoCheckIcon ipsType_medium"><i class="fa fa-square-o"></i></span> <i class="fa fa-caret-down"></i> <span class='ipsNotificationCount' data-role='autoCheckCount'>0</span> </a> <ul class="ipsMenu ipsMenu_auto ipsMenu_withStem ipsHide" id="elCheck_menu"> <li class="ipsMenu_title">{lang="select_rows"}</li> <li class="ipsMenu_item" data-ipsMenuValue="all"><a href="#">{lang="all"}</a></li> <li class="ipsMenu_item" data-ipsMenuValue="none"><a href="#">{lang="none"}</a></li> <li class="ipsMenu_sep"><hr></li> <li class="ipsMenu_item" data-ipsMenuValue="hidden"><a href="#">{lang="hidden"}</a></li> <li class="ipsMenu_item" data-ipsMenuValue="unhidden"><a href="#">{lang="unhidden"}</a></li> <li class="ipsMenu_item" data-ipsMenuValue="unapproved"><a href="#">{lang="unapproved"}</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> {{endif}} {{if $pagination}} {$pagination|raw} {{endif}} </div> {{endif}} ERRORS: Error: Duplicate ID elPagination_0d84dfb8b6392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633. From line 10035, column 2; to line 10035, column 224 ↩ ↩↩↩ ↩ <ul class='ipsPagination' id='elPagination_0d84dfb8b6392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633' data-ipsPagin…ue' data-pages='2' data-ipsPagination data-ipsPagination-pages="2" data-ipsPagination-perPage='25'>↩ ↩ Warning: The first occurrence of ID elPagination_0d84dfb8b6392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633 was here. From line 1599, column 2; to line 1599, column 224 ↩↩↩ ↩ <ul class='ipsPagination' id='elPagination_0d84dfb8b6392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633' data-ipsPagin…ue' data-pages='2' data-ipsPagination data-ipsPagination-pages="2" data-ipsPagination-perPage='25'>↩ ↩ Error: Duplicate ID elPagination_0d84dfb8b6392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633_jump. From line 10051, column 6; to line 10051, column 211 mp'>↩ <a href='#' data-ipsMenu data-ipsMenu-closeOnClick='false' data-ipsMenu-appendTo='#elPagination_0d84…392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633' id='elPagination_0d84dfb8b6392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633_jump'>Page 1 Warning: The first occurrence of ID elPagination_0d84dfb8b6392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633_jump was here. From line 1615, column 6; to line 1615, column 211 mp'>↩ <a href='#' data-ipsMenu data-ipsMenu-closeOnClick='false' data-ipsMenu-appendTo='#elPagination_0d84…392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633' id='elPagination_0d84dfb8b6392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633_jump'>Page 1 Error: Duplicate ID elPagination_0d84dfb8b6392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633_jump_menu. From line 10052, column 6; to line 10052, column 131 </a>↩ <div class='ipsMenu ipsMenu_narrow ipsPadding ipsHide' id='elPagination_0d84dfb8b6392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633_jump_menu'>↩ Warning: The first occurrence of ID elPagination_0d84dfb8b6392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633_jump_menu was here. From line 1616, column 6; to line 1616, column 131 </a>↩ <div class='ipsMenu ipsMenu_narrow ipsPadding ipsHide' id='elPagination_0d84dfb8b6392cf011e295693b7c56a0_918124633_jump_menu'>↩

On at least 8 major template pages your plugin inserts this meta tag into the header: <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"> The issue is that it creates many WC3 HTML errors, which is very poor for SEO. Can you please fix the plugin so it will not insert this meta tag? The following 5 errors are caused in each of these 8 templates: Error: A document must not include both a meta element with an http-equiv attribute whose value is content-type, and a meta element with a charset attribute. From line 3, column 73; to line 3, column 94 et=UTF-8"><meta charset="utf-8">↩<titl Error: Attribute http-equiv not allowed on element meta at this point. From line 231, column 9; to line 231, column 74 ↩↩<header><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><div c Attributes for element meta: Global attributes name — Metadata name http-equiv — Pragma directive content — Value of the element charset — Character encoding declaration Error: Element meta is missing one or more of the following attributes: itemprop, property. From line 231, column 9; to line 231, column 74 ↩↩<header><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><div c Attributes for element meta: Global attributes name — Metadata name http-equiv — Pragma directive content — Value of the element charset — Character encoding declaration Error: A document must not include both a meta element with an http-equiv attribute whose value is content-type, and a meta element with a charset attribute. From line 231, column 9; to line 231, column 74 ↩↩<header><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><div c Error: A document must not include more than one meta element with a http-equiv attribute whose value is content-type. From line 231, column 9; to line 231, column 74 ↩↩<header><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8"><div c

I think I figured this out...the message is showing below the topic...not sure if I moved it there, or the new version displays it there!

I am in the process of upgrading from 4.4.10 to 4.5.x and on my test site around 80% of my forum was archived before the upgrade. When I review the old threads after the upgrade, none of the archived ones are displaying the archived message. I assume that they are still archived, and that there is an issue with the message, but I am not sure. Anyone else have this issue after upgrading?

Yes, I am in the process of upgrading from 4.4.10 to 4.5.x and I display the sidebar in mobile. On my test site now I do see that all of the side bar blocks do not scale to 100% width, so they are not responsive. I waited this long to upgrade because I thought that such issues would be worked out by now.