New Seo Update Suggestion

[Lase]

I love SEO topics.

I hate them. And its safe to say I've spent about 3 hours today reading them, and learned nothing. Just some basic measures i can impliment would be great.

I even found this in the handful of realted yields through Google:

"I use IP board for my forums right now.

From my experience, yes it is very SEO friendly. The newer versions literally have built in tools for EXACTLY that, SEO optimization."

Sounds brilliant, can't see anything in ACP about SEO though.

[esquire]

So it's been thread since before the 1970's?

The WWW's presence was actually in the mid 90s. Before then it was dial-up sites using either Windows software or command line interface.

From my experience, yes it is very SEO friendly. The newer versions literally have built in tools for EXACTLY that, SEO optimization."

Sounds brilliant, can't see anything in ACP about SEO though.

Some things yes, some things not at all. We can discuss it in another topic (or thread, lol.)

[Wolfie]

The WWW's presence was actually in the mid 90s. Before then it was dial-up sites using either Windows software or command line interface.

Check your history, that's incorrect.

[esquire]

Check your history, that's incorrect.

What part? Mosaic was the first widespread adopted web browser and was only created in 1993 with adoption taking some time after.

[Wolfie]

What part? Mosaic was the first widespread adopted web browser and was only created in 1993 with adoption taking some time after.

The first http protocol happened in 1991 and overlooking the existence of the internet and focusing solely on WWW, that actually existed as far back as 1980, even though it wasn't really known as that at the time. First web browser doesn't mean that's when the web was born. It's like saying that folders didn't exist until Windows Explorer was invented.

[esquire]

The first http protocol happened in 1991 and overlooking the existence of the internet and focusing solely on WWW, that actually existed as far back as 1980, even though it wasn't really known as that at the time. First web browser doesn't mean that's when the web was born. It's like saying that folders didn't exist until Windows Explorer was invented.

I was talking about general usage in the population, not technical or obscure references that belong in the textbook for historical markings. Mosaic is where most of the forward motion we call the WWW started. Before Mosaic, there was practically a zero presence of the web in the general population. Data transmission bandwidth was extremely limited and virtually all were still using slow dial-up connections in the early 90s.

[Makoto]

Thread is what non IPS products call it because they think a piece of string means a discussion. ;)

Thread is what I call it and will continue to call it regardless of which is more logical. I'm just old fashioned. :dry:

[blair]

In my experience, the SEO efforts of IPS have been mostly a death by a thousand cuts. SEO "improvements" are followed by measurable decreases in traffic (since 2.3).

SEO is not snake oil. There are industry best practices. Content is not king. Many resources are available to measure SEO perfomance. SEO done wrong is worse than no SEO at all (I'll keep this simple and not offer examples). Since IPS is now a suite, SEO changes should apply across the suite.

What if I told you there is a different forum platform that increases unique visitors an average of 40% in the first year (when migrated from IPB/vB)? These are not tiny start-up forums, but mostly large, stagnant, established sites with over 1M+ uniques per month. Would you like a 40% increase in traffic next year? That's SEO done right.

IPS does security audits by third parties (or at least they should), they should also do third party SEO audits. I've sent Matt information on the SEO firm that consulted the forum platform mentioned above. I hope he's followed through on it. There are reasons even companies like Microsoft outsource their SEO.

Let's face it, vB5 is a total rewrite and appears to be a joke. Xenforo appears to be dead or dieing. There is no lack of forum alternatives, but most others appear to be either immature or stagnant. If IPB gets its SEO house in order, they have a unique opportunity to capitalize and become the dominant "suite".

[Makoto]

My site is doing very well in Google, sucks for you if you're having problems I guess. It could possibly be better, but it's certainly not terrible in the least.

My site has good content though, and that's what brings in traffic. I don't need to rely on silly SEO tricks nor do I need to constantly try and find ways to, quote, exploit Google's algorithims in an attempt to give my site an advantage. Google's algorithims change all the time anyways, it's going to be impossible to keep up with it in that sense.

I don't see anything directly wrong with IP.Board and no one here has proven otherwise. All I hear are silly suggestions and complaints that IPB is performing sub-par compared to so and so without listing any valid comparisons.

I will continue insulting your silly debates until someone posts some accurate comparisons themselves instead of tiredly saying "well VBSEO is so great I don't need to explain why, just look at those statistics!"

Tell us why VBSEO is so great. Give us detailed comparisons as to what they do different and why what they do is so much better. If you're not going to go through the effort of doing that, go away.

[Wolfie]

I was talking about general usage in the population, not technical or obscure references that belong in the textbook for historical markings. Mosaic is where most of the forward motion we call the WWW started. Before Mosaic, there was practically a zero presence of the web in the general population. Data transmission bandwidth was extremely limited and virtually all were still using slow dial-up connections in the early 90s.

I disagree, at least with the last statement. (The other is.. well.. a difference between literal and conceptual aspects, as you pointed out.) Only in that those who did use the internet at that time (before it started becoming popular in the mid to late 90's) weren't always limited to dial-up. That mostly applied to the general public for BBS and similar uses. If that's what you were referring to then we're in agreement and just some misinterpretation going on.

[Wolfie]

Content is not king.

I'm going to disagree with that, simply because URL's alone will not bring in visitors. Not saying that URL structure doesn't matter, just that content plays a massive role in it. After all, you yourself said that, "SEO done wrong is worse than no SEO at all" which would mean that the content can bring in results by itself. Just wanted to address that one comment. I'm sure Matt will either look at what you sent to him or at the very least make it available for the other staff to look at so that it's given consideration. As Charles said, they look at what is suggested and try to take a sensible approach to things, so I seriously doubt it'll be tossed aside.

Let's face it, vB5 is a total rewrite and appears to be a joke. Xenforo appears to be dead or dieing.

When I think of vB, I think of "veryBad" as far as how things are handled (in the past and for what appears to the be future). I hope XF doesn't die out because I believe that provides some good competition which gives IPS motivation to work harder to remain the best. I actually like certain things about XF (not that I'd switch away from IPS products, I like sturdy professional quality products), so I hope it remains. vB on the other hand, if they IB doesn't get their act together as far as vB is concerned, then it's going to be dead probably within the next 3 years. Be nice if they were to stop screwing around and actually do something worthwhile, because competition is good not only for the consumer but for the companies. Not only that, but different products often offer certain things that others don't and that too helps out both sides because if the IPS products don't provide what someone truly needs/wants but something else does, then aside from the obvious (consumer benefits), IPS doesn't have to deal with someone feeling like their needs aren't being met. Having handled things from a "customer service" point of view, it really sucks when having to break bad news to someone because you don't want to bring someone down but at the same time, you can't satisfy their needs.

So I hope IB quits their b.s. (are they still trying to do legal tricks on XF?) and tries to be better, because it helps out in a lot of ways. Consumers get more choices, companies have motivation to do better, economy improves, etc.

Give us detailed comparisons as to what they do different and why what they do is so much better.

I think this applies to many suggestions where the reason stems from "this is how other products do it" and not just SEO based topics. Speaking in general and not about the topic of SEO, people are resistant to change even if that change is for the better. It could be from not knowing what it will mean in the long run to being too used to how things were being done and not wanting to adapt (laziness or just believing it'll be hard to get used to new ways). Sometimes changes are good and it's just a matter of getting past that period of adjustment. Still though, if someone wants something to be changed, they should offer validation for it, either in private or in the open. Even a "slim to no" chance suggestion gets a better chance if it's backed up by evidence of some sort.

[blair]

I'm going to disagree with that, simply because URL's alone will not bring in visitors. Not saying that URL structure doesn't matter, just that content plays a massive role in it. After all, you yourself said that, "SEO done wrong is worse than no SEO at all" which would mean that the content can bring in results by itself. Just wanted to address that one comment.

I thought it was obvious hyperbole. Since most comments from staff here echo that content is all that matters, it was a preemptive attack. When the simple (or not so simple) act of changing forum software significantly increases traffic to a site, without changes to content, there is obviously something else at play.

As I said above, poor SEO is often a death by a thousand cuts. There is rarely one change, or a magic bullet that makes your site rank. However, there is one big SEO feature that IPB is missing, and that's related content. Look at Amazon, "Customers Who Viewed This Item Also Viewed"; StackExchange, "Related"; Microsoft Answers, "Related Threads"; vBulletin, "Similar Threads"; many Wordpress blogs, and even Discuss commenting system offer related content. The current method of linking topics by tags or previous and next, don't offer a lot of value to humans or search engines. Related topics, or people who have viewed this topics also viewed... do offer value to humans and search engines.

I have similar topics on my site. Accidentally removed them at one point. Traffic started dropping. Was down around 20% before I figured out my error. Restored the similar topic mod, and the traffic restored as well.

[Rimi]

Since most comments from staff here echo that content is all that matters

Actually, it's only just one staff member and he's not one of the dev's so it doesn't really matter. What he's saying is his own opinion. That whole "content is king" though is pretty ridiculous. Look at this.

http://community.inv...e/#entry2268541

According to him, "content is king" is another way of saying keyword stuffing is the best SEO technique. So I don't really believe in that stuff anymore. I do agree though that the best thing to do for my site is to make it high quality.

[Makoto]

To me, content is king means running a website that isn't trash and not trying to fill your site with crap content like keyword stuffers do. If your site is trash to the point you have to spend thousands on having "SEO experts" get you any worthwhile traffic, the problem is your site sucks, not that the software sucks. If your site is good, people will find it. Good content is over half the battle, but it's not all of it of course. It's just arguably the most important part. You also want a website that's easy for Google to index as well. IP.Board is. That's another main part of the battle. IP.Board follows pretty much all of the recommendations written by Google themselves.

There's still room for imrpovement, but IPB does take care of the two most important things well enough. It is certainly not terrible, and when you're claiming there's a significant problem with IP.Board without providing any real evidence to back up your claim, you're just making yourself look like a fool. Show us why vbSEO/whatever you use is better, or go away, because you're not helpful in any sense, you're just annoying.

When I want to see improvements to something in IP.Board, I don't make a topic that says "your app sucks, so and so's app is better, improve it."

Edit: And see, your points could actually hold some merit blair. I shouldn't have just skimmed your post.

[esquire]

Blair clearly knows what he's talking about and I have an idea of the "forum" he's talking about that have begun to rake in traffic at a great clip, superior to IPB and vBulletin and XenForo.

To me, content is king means running a website that isn't trash and not trying to fill your site with crap content like keyword stuffers do.

To you and to me, yes. But to search engines, this just isn't the case. I know first hand and can show you sites running the same software as my own, my content is clearly far superior and of value, they have repetitive phrases in all of their forum names for keyword stuffing and for many months we were battling with this terrible site for traffic when Panda and Penguin struck.

One example: do a search for "law forum" in Google and you'll find this site law forum dot net coming up as #1, 2 or 3 - at least it did for me for a long time and still today. All this talk about how Google is cracking down on domains with keywords, etc. The site was a Google Adsense landing spot for a year. Now if "content is king" then this site wouldn't be ranking anywhere in the vicinity of the top 5000.

If your site is trash to the point you have to spend thousands on having "SEO experts" get you any worthwhile traffic, the problem is your site sucks, not that the software sucks. If your site is good, people will find it. Good content is over half the battle, but it's not all of it of course. It's just arguably the most important part. You also want a website that's easy for Google to index as well. IP.Board is. That's another main part of the battle. IP.Board follows pretty much all of the recommendations written by Google themselves.

There's still room for imrpovement, but IPB does take care of the two most important things well enough. It is certainly not terrible, and when you're claiming there's a significant problem with IP.Board without providing any real evidence to back up your claim, you're just making yourself look like a fool. Show us why vbSEO/whatever you use is better, or go away, because you're not helpful in any sense, you're just annoying.

One way to gain knowledge is to speak to reliable people who run large sites and are willing to honestly share results privately. Others will provide general information and you can choose to accept it or not. Some of it is snakeoil and guesswork. Others is just a purely logical analysis of how the machine operates.

IPB does some things well and other things it misses by a long shot. Simple case in point -- it doesn't create logic menu and directory structures that humans would understand. Look at the database FURL marker for IPC -- the underscore. Let's say that means "content" so change the marker to "content". If you go to yoursite.com /content/ you won't be served a page. IPB isn't designed to serve you a page. If you go to mysite.com /forum/ you will get served a page. This is very poor for humans and also search engines because they get confused just like humans do about your site structure. There is some of your proof. How much it matters I can't tell you but it's certainly a blatant eyesore out of the box among others.

IPB is great. I'm glad that this topic is getting more attention. We're all trying to make it better. I'm just hoping you'll realize that we are not trying to sell anything and are just like you and we can keep the conversation at a friendly tone.

[Makoto]

To you and to me, yes. But to search engines, this just isn't the case. I know first hand and can show you sites running the same software as my own, my content is clearly far superior and of value, they have repetitive phrases in all of their forum names for keyword stuffing and for many months we were battling with this terrible site for traffic when Panda and Penguin struck.

One example: do a search for "law forum" in Google and you'll find this site law forum dot net coming up as #1, 2 or 3 - at least it did for me for a long time and still today. All this talk about how Google is cracking down on domains with keywords, etc. The site was a Google Adsense landing spot for a year. Now if "content is king" then this site wouldn't be ranking anywhere in the vicinity of the top 5000.

That's great and all, but IPB is never going to try and go that route. So it's pointless to even discuss. I've learned the hard way that Google can and will block you for doing things of the sort before. Once several years ago. I did have my site blocked from Google for "keyword stuffing" and had to send an appeal out to have the block removed. I don't doubt that Google will start cracking down on these sites. If anyone wants to gamble with them, go ahead. But I promise no one at IPB is going to follow suit.

This is a discussion about how to legitimately optimize the software to be more SE friendly, not finding shady ways to trick Google into giving you an unfair advantage.

Content is also still king, because unless you're literally trying to run a terrible forum thats only purpose is to monetize off ad and referal revenue at the cost of driving all the traffic it gets away, you want a website that people will actually use, not just a site that gets a little higher ranked in Google. Peope who have to obsess over SEO as their only means of getting traffic are clearly doing something wrong when they literally have to rely on SEO for all their traffic to begin with. The fact is going to remain that there is only so much you can do.

IPB still shouldn't have to license out to some "SEO firm" to improve its software.

[blair]

This is a discussion about how to legitimately optimize the software to be more SE friendly, not finding shady ways to trick Google into giving you an unfair advantage... IPB still shouldn't have to license out to some "SEO firm" to improve its software.

I don't think anyone here is suggesting anything shady. That would be dumb, especially in the long-term. There are plenty of proven white-hat SEO techniques.

Why shouldn't IPS utilize an SEO firm? I don't think anyone questions whether IPS writes secure code, but should they hire a 3rd party to review their code's security, I think it would only be viewed as responsible. As memory serves, IPS has mentioned in previous blog posts that they do utilize 3rd parties for security audits. I give the developers credit for admitting they aren't SEO experts. They are very willing to accept SEO feedback from customers, sometimes to a fault.

Microsoft has 90k employees, and maybe some of the brightest engineers on the planet. They have in-house SEO experts, but they also hire 3rd party firms. Why? Because they perform. I have an NDA relationship with Microsoft that prevents me from disclosing details, but I've had Live Meetings with both their internal, and 3rd party SEO consultants. Both very bright and impressive resources. As recently as a couple years ago Microsoft either underestimated, or misunderstood the impact of SEO (much like IPS). That is no longer the case, and it's reflected in their online performance. Microsoft support has traditionally been offered via phone and newsgroups. Did you know Microsoft has forums? They didn't until a couple of years ago, but I bet you do now. Why? Because their monthly uniques are in the 9-digit range. How do you think that has impacted their support costs?

Let's assume IPS decides not to hire the SEO firm I recommended, or any other. It's not hugely expensive. If you have a large community you care about, it's maybe worth the cost to hire them. But then unless you're a developer, you'll have the development costs needed to implement the recommended changes. I can read a lot of PHP, but I'm not a developer. There are a number of things I'd like to change that are just coded too deep in the software to be accessible. Not to mention challenges when upgrading. Why have a small number of large forums benefit from better SEO, when all forums could benefit?

[blair]

A couple of free SEO tips that almost anyone can apply today with only changes to skins or moderating techniques. What do you do when you have duplicate topics? Do you link to the original and close it? Don't. Just delete it. Google's Panda updates penalize for "thin" content. Same applies to user profiles. Don't show user profiles to guests (and search engines) because the vast majority are thin. Also don't show signatures to guests.

Want to make some skin edits? Edit the post screen to include tips on creating a good post. The most often cited SEO tip is to use relevant page titles. User generated topics often don't include a great topic name (page title). Encourage them to do so. If you're more adventurous I'd strongly suggest you use the guest skin option for more edits.

SuperUser as an example of skinning to promote relevant titles:



edit: sorry for going off-topic from the OP

[Makoto]

If IPB ever did choose to use a third party firm for SEO advice, I know I don't need to state that they should be sure they're not getting ripped off. It's already been stated they're aware most all "SEO experts" out there are complete and utter crocks. There may be a few good firms and bright experts out there, but most are idiots just trying to steal your money. I don't think you'll argue with me there, though.

All that aside, I'm not going to jump through hoops and change the way I run my site just to score a few small points with Google. I like having signatures available for everyone to view, even guests. I do delete actual double posts, as that is simply the logical thing to do, especially when there have been no posts in one of the double posted threads.

As for hiding user profiles from guests, that's something I'm on the fence on for a number of reasons irrelevant to this entire conversation. I may end up simply hiding them from guest eyes in the future.

Post quality is something I've always strongly emphasized and encouraged in many areas. This is one I completely agree with you on. Good topic titles can be crucial to having a thread well indexed. Things like this are all things recommended by Google directly.

[esquire]

Post quality is something I've always strongly emphasized and encouraged in many areas. This is one I completely agree with you on. Good topic titles can be crucial to having a thread well indexed. Things like this are all things

recommended by Google directly

.

I don't know how to say this except I (and am sure all) agree with you 100% on this. The difference is that I've put aside resentment I may have with the way the system works with the way that it should work, such as being rewarded for the value of your content. I think that I understand Blair's perspective to a large extent because I've seen and recognize the unfortunate disparity that exists and also the fact that, as with everything, catering to a given process you can't change (such as spidering and search engines) is a most prudent measure one can take.

[Tsvi]

If IPB ever did choose to use a third party firm for SEO advice, I know I don't need to state that they should be sure they're not getting ripped off. It's already been stated they're aware most all "SEO experts" out there are complete and utter crocks. There may be a few good firms and bright experts out there, but most are idiots just trying to steal your money. I don't think you'll argue with me there, though.

All that aside, I'm not going to jump through hoops and change the way I run my site just to score a few small points with Google. I like having signatures available for everyone to view, even guests. I do delete actual double posts, as that is simply the logical thing to do, especially when there have been no posts in one of the double posted threads.

As for hiding user profiles from guests, that's something I'm on the fence on for a number of reasons irrelevant to this entire conversation. I may end up simply hiding them from guest eyes in the future.

Post quality is something I've always strongly emphasized and encouraged in many areas. This is one I completely agree with you on. Good topic titles can be crucial to having a thread well indexed. Things like this are all things

recommended by Google directly

.

The main reason to hide user profiles for guests (and of course search engines) plus hiding the signature from guests is a good receipt for avoiding spammers.
Because if that work differently, spammers would register to your board and leave all sort of URLs to their own website in their profiles and signatures to create eventually lots of external links to their website,
which means it's making their rank better. That's why you should avoid that.
Although signatures has 'nofollow' relation (Which of course you can disable in ACP, but no need to!), but not always spammers pay attention to it. So I guess they'll pay more attention if guests can't see signatures.

[Makoto]

The main reason to user profiles for guests (and of course search engines) plus hiding the signature from guests is a good receipt for avoiding spammers.

Because if that work differently, spammers would register to your board and leave all sort of URLs to their own website in their profiles and signatures to create eventually lots of external links to their website,

which means it's making their rank better. That's why you should avoid that.

Although signatures has 'nofollow' relation (Which of course you can disable in ACP, but no need to!), but not always spammers pay attention to it. So I guess they'll pay more attention if guests can't see signatures.

Links added to profiles and signatures shouldn't even be followed by search engines, correct? As all links have the nofollow attribute applied to them.

I ended up hiding profiles for privacy reasons alone.

[esquire]

Links added to profiles and signatures shouldn't even be followed by search engines, correct? As all links have the nofollow attribute applied to them.

Doesn't matter. A huge number of "backlink specialists" will dump links in forum profiles as they are typically inconspicuous and not immediately noticed. Then they include all those awesome backlinks in a list to their client to show how many awesome backlinks were created. Doesn't help you, doesn't help your clients, only helps these charlatans sell a prayer and a dream.

[Makoto]

Doesn't matter. A huge number of "backlink specialists" will dump links in forum profiles as they are typically inconspicuous and not immediately noticed. Then they include all those awesome backlinks in a list to their client to show how many awesome backlinks were created. Doesn't help you, doesn't help your clients, only helps these charlatans sell a prayer and a dream.

So? I have no issues with spmabots on my board, and the links will not impact the spambots websites ranking at all to begin with.

It does matter. Set your board up properly and have it well staffed and you'll have no issues with spambots anyways. Been running my site for nearly three years now and have had very few issues.

[esquire]

So? I have no issues with spmabots on my board, and the links will not impact the spambots websites ranking at all to begin with.

It does matter. Set your board up properly and have it well staffed and you'll have no issues with spambots anyways. Been running my site for nearly three years now and have had very few issues.

My site ranks reasonably well for competitive keywords. I've been running my site for over 10 years and I've seen a whole lot of craziness that led me to getting a secure firewall installed to deal with issues like spambots -- and especially manual link builders who will come to your site and posts tons of garbage.