Meta tags or SEO Mod?

[deanandeva]

Hi, I have started a new install and wonder what the community feel is the best MOD for SEO, Advanced Meta Tags mod or an SEO mod?

Or a combination of both ?

Any thoughts appreciated


Thanks


Dean

[Brf]

Neither is needed. This site gets indexed just fine without either.

[Eelke]

Indeed. I think you need a third option, which is "Don't apply a MOD for SEO". Suffice to say, I would go for that. I have explained why numerous times before in various threads so forgive me if I won't repeat the exercise

[deanandeva]

Great thanks

[Dog Cow]

Neither is needed. This site gets indexed just fine without either.

This site is also linked to from millions of other phpBB sites, has been around for years, and is the Number 1 source of anything phpBB-related.

No comparison.

[Brf]

OK.
My site gets indexed fine.
The only problem I was having was that Google was using all of my monthly bandwidth. Last month I had to lockdown my largest forum to prevent that.

[Eelke]

My number 1 top tip for SEO on phpBB3: modify the title tag in the head so that the topic title comes first, not the sitename as it is by standard. This is mostly relevant for search results, where the title is used for the link, and often it is shortened by leaving off the end. Making sure the topic title is at the front means that the topic title is the first thing a search engine user sees.

If you are in a subject area where there is heavy competition from other boards, you may want to try every trick in the book. If you're not, than carefully consider whether the stuff you are applying really is worth the extra hazzle.

[drathbun]

Hi, I have started a new install and wonder what the community feel is the best MOD for SEO, Advanced Meta Tags mod or an SEO mod?

Neither.

The argument against SEO is often supported by the fact that phpbb.com doesn't use it, and it gets linked fine. As dog cow pointed out earlier in this topic, that's hardly a fair comparison to a brand new site.

What you need to focus on is content. SEO might get visitors to your site, content will keep them coming back. SEO is not going to magically get your site to appear in the first page or two of search results overnight. Build your content and wait a few years and see what happens. If you need a tie-breaker between your site and another site with similar content then some SEO tactics might give you an edge.

But be prepared to change tactics every time Google changes their search index algorithms.

I just published a blog post with more details related to my thoughts about this: SEO… Snake Oil or Magic Bullet?.

[Dogs and things]

I had a quick look at your site and I must say it looks really good, and interesting.

Before looking at it I was going to say that apart from having a forum you should add other content to it, like articles. But I see you have already taken care of that by means of user blogs. That very cleaver, it will appeal to some of your users and make them add relevant content to your site.

And that is precisely what I consider very good SEO (if it may be called SEO) for a forum, interesting, related and unique content.

If I were you I wouldn´t focus on anything else SEO-wise, I'd only focus on getting more good content and on trying to promote my site.

In other words, keep up the good work and over time you'll see the benefits.

Greetings.

[4Teach]

instead of wasting your time in SEO mod, first add your site to many search engines if u have not done it yet.

[TVwas]

My forum is brand new.
The SEO problem I am having is that Google AdWords thinks my forum page links, eg "f=6" are "low quality".
The link contains no keywords, the forum pagesource does not contain any keywords or page description.
The forum's breadcrumbs of routing would be great as keywords metatag or description metatag but I do not know how to get that to happen automatically.

Basically, because Google thinks my ads for 'subject area forums' are low quality because 'subject area forums' does not appear in the links, the keywords, the description, or the title metatag. Google does not appear to be picking up the routing breadcrumbs line as relevant text. Since Google thinks the ad does not match the 'subject area' well, it ups the minimum bid to over $1 per click, well outside my ability to pay.

I'm used to dynamic filling of metatags and breadcrumbs that are seen by Google.
Any way for this to happen in PHPBB3?

Best Wishes,
TVwas

[craiga]

My number 1 top tip for SEO on phpBB3: modify the title tag in the head so that the topic title comes first, not the sitename as it is by standard. This is mostly relevant for search results, where the title is used for the link, and often it is shortened by leaving off the end. Making sure the topic title is at the front means that the topic title is the first thing a search engine user sees.

That sounds very useful. My forum is called "Scottish Football Forums", so the current title tag means that the important topic title is often truncated.

Has anyone else used the above technique? Are there any negative points about making this simple change?

Eelke, is the following how you implemented it

Code: Select all

<!-- IF SCRIPT_NAME == 'index' -->
<title>{SITENAME}</title>
<!-- ELSE -->
<title><!-- IF S_IN_MCP -->{L_MCP} &bull; <!-- ELSEIF S_IN_UCP -->{L_UCP} &bull; <!-- ENDIF -->{PAGE_TITLE} &bull; {SITENAME}</title>
<!-- ENDIF -->

Am i right in thinking that {PAGE_TITLE} is replaced by "View Topic - xxxx" ? Is there anyway to chop of "View Topic -" and only leave the topic title (xxxx in my example)?

[craiga]

i have modified viewtopic.php to

Code: Select all

page_header($topic_data['topic_title'], true, $forum_id);

this removes the "view topic" from the page title

[Highway of Life]

First of all don’t fall into the trap of belief that SEO is strictly “human readable URLs”, SEO (Search Engine Optimization ) is a verb, not a noun. SEO consists of any action that you take to make your website more friendly to search engines.

However, don’t fall into the other side and think that you can get away with doing nothing. Do NOT be satisfied with your site being indexed 'just fine', that never put anybody's website on top of the search engines. NEVER. They did have to work their way there, from manipulating the content and keyword control to incoming links, they didn’t get to the top by accident, large companies that appear at the top of the results spent a great deal of effort in getting there. It’s certainly worth it to read about SEO to get ideas and take advice from some SEO experts (yes, they are out there). Knowledge is power and every little bit helps.

There are a number of things that you can do to be search engine friendly, and there are a number of things built into phpBB3 that make it search engine friendly. Here are just a few things to consider.

1. phpBB3 Gets indexed by Search Engines just fine - although one of the problems that it has faced is that each post gets indexed as a new page, so a single viewtopic page might show up in the index more than 20 times (20 posts), at least that was the case last time I checked.
   
   
2. Having human readable URLs such as this page might be: community/viewtopic/t1785465-meta-tags-seo-mod.html if using a human readable URLs MOD (commonly called SEO URLs MOD), these can contain extra keyword content. Any time you have titles and page names that contain keyword content that matches the page, it can help with searches and humans finding the content they are looking for. Search Engines, after all, are there for the primary purpose of helping users find what they are looking for. So are these human readable URLs a bad thing? Absolutely not! Do you need them? Maybe not, but they can’t hurt. And if any little thing helps, this could be a little thing worth implementing, like point #3...
   
   
3. One of the main problems that I have with the way page titles are handled in phpBB3 is that you get:
   {SITENAME} - {PAGE_NAME} - {ACTUAL TOPIC TITLE}, now when viewing search results, what is most interesting to me is the actual topic title, and secondly the sitename, the page name (which is index, view forum, view topic, view online, etc) I find completely useless in search results. It might help you know where you are, but it doesn’t help me, as a searching user, identify if this is the page that I am looking for. That’s why Eelke's suggesting for switching the title tag so that the topic title comes first is such a good suggestion. You don’t run the risk of the topic title - the most valuable portion of the title tag - being truncated in search results. So switch that tag!
   
   
4. Meta Tags MOD - This is actually a MOD I created, but do I find it useful?.. not really, no. To me, it’s a little less useful than the human readable URLs, although much easier to implement. Is it useful? Perhaps to some limited extent, it’s really easy to install and having a description and keywords that match the content of your page... well, it can’t hurt.
   
   
5. Although this is the last point, it is the most important point...
   Your Content.
   Only your content can really dictate how well you will end up ranking in search results, if you have good, useful, searchable content, then search engines will find it and index it. Then people can find your site, without that content, people don’t have anything on your site to search for. Content is King.

[Eelke]

The title bit of my overall header looks like this:

Code: Select all

<title><!-- IF S_VIEWTOPIC -->{TOPIC_TITLE} &bull; <!-- ENDIF -->{SITENAME} &bull; Forum<!-- IF S_VIEWFORUM --> &bull; {FORUM_NAME}<!-- ELSEIF S_IN_MCP --> &bull; {L_MCP}<!-- ELSEIF S_IN_UCP --> &bull; {L_UCP}<!-- ELSEIF not S_VIEWTOPIC --> &bull; {PAGE_TITLE}<!-- ENDIF --></title>

So basically, for topics the title starts with the topic title, than a bullet, then my site's name, then the word "Forum" (my site has more sections that just the forum). For other cases, "{SITENAME} • Forum" comes first, then depending on what page is being shown either the translation for "Moderator Control Panel", "User control panel", or whatever phpBB3 thought the page title should be.

There's of course a few variations possible. My implementation means that forum overviews will start with the sitename. For forum overviews, I felt it should be clear this is a forum overview, so sitename and "Forum" should come first. However, as should probably be clear from HoL's explanation above, this is not an exact science and you may have different priorities or needs.