phpBB & Structured Data JSON-LD (Google search)

[Xymox2017]

I'm wondering if it is possible to have my forum displayed in Google search results having a nice visual card.

Have a look at this Google search result for a specific site:

Search for tweakers.net.

The results shows a visual card at the right having logo, site information for the site.

Looking at the Google help pages on Structured Data, there are many options to instruct Google search to display extra stuff in the search results, like:

• Logo
• Corporate info
• Carousel
• Review
• Local business
• Breadcrumbs

etc. etc.

So, I'm not talking about getting higher rankings for my forum, but this is more a question about getting my forum better presented in the search results.

Looking at the markup examples, I'm not sure how to implement this in phpBB. Where to put it?
I could not find much info on this particular topic, though there are threads here to be found on SEO page rankings.

Example on a logo:

Code: Select all

{
  "@context": "http://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "url": "http://www.example.com",
  "logo": "http://www.example.com/images/logo.png"
}

Nice would be some clear examples how to tweak phpBB core to enhance it to get the wanted result in the search results.
(any extensions out there?)

[AmigoJack]

Looking at the markup examples, I'm not sure how to implement this

How about linking to it in the first place? Also keep in mind Google is not the only search engine and it is unlikely phpBB will implement vendor specifics.

[Xymox2017]

Looking at the markup examples, I'm not sure how to implement this

How about linking to it in the first place? Also keep in mind Google is not the only search engine and it is unlikely phpBB will implement vendor specifics.

You mean linking to the Google examples (info) ?

Here it is:

https://developers.google.com/search/do ... tured-data

From there the several chapters on the features, like the Logo one:

https://developers.google.com/search/do ... types/logo

As for vendor specifics: I know. But Google is a leading vendor and I would like to provide it the best visuals when searching my site.
I can imagine this will not be part of the phpBB software out-of-the-box, but knowing how to tweak the default templates to add the needed structured data is the answer I seek.

[Dog Cow]

Looking at the markup examples, I'm not sure how to implement this

How about linking to it in the first place? Also keep in mind Google is not the only search engine and it is unlikely phpBB will implement vendor specifics.

It's not vendor specific. Take a look. Other search engines are parsing this markup too. It's JSON for Linking Data

[AmigoJack]

It's not vendor specific. Take a look.

Nobody specifically called the name until you did, but instead only "Google", hence I assumed it being vendor specific. And without a link I could also not have had a look retroactively. It would help if Xymox2017 would change the topic title to mention JSON-LD specifically. So it's the next iteration of what RDF and HTML Microdata focused on already.

Other search engines are parsing this markup too.

I see that nowhere mentioned, neither on JSON-LD's homepage, nor Wikipedia articles.

[tojag]

I'm wondering if it is possible to have my forum displayed in Google search results having a nice visual card.

Have a look at this Google search result for a specific site:

Search for tweakers.net.

The results shows a visual card at the right having logo, site information for the site.

I do not know if I understood correctly which information you are writing about but I don't see it on the right for site tweakers.net. I see only few categories below first link.
For my own site google display categories below first link too. And I do nothing for this result.
But I see info on the right for phpBB site
https://www.google.com/search?q=phpbb.com

Has phpBB site this additional information?

Additionally google display a searchbox for fast searching in some website below the first link. I see that searchbox for my main website and for phpBB site. For my another website I added some info direct from 'google search console' but this website is not popular and google does not display additional info, categories, searchbox in search result.
So, I think that is result of the site popularity.
Please check your site in Google Search Console. You can check the structure of the site or problems from the point of view of the Google search engine. You can also add information about the site.

[david63]

The way that I am reading what the OP is wanting to have displayed by Google is more related, and possible, where you have static pages. If your board is part of a site that has static pages, such as a "Home" page then it is probably quite easy to achieve but if the board is the site then it will be dynamic and either not possible or certainly a lot more difficult to achieve.

I may, however, have misunderstood how this works with Google (and I have no idea about other search engines) and have the wrong idea.

[Xymox2017]

But I see info on the right for phpBB site
https://www.google.com/search?q=phpbb.com

Has phpBB site this additional information?

Yes. That extra information at the right side in the search result for phpBB website is exactly what I mean.
This info can be added to our websites using the mentioned micro-structured-data elements.

This is the logo, the details, the extra links provided etc etc.

These extra additions to our phpBB powered forums would be very nice.

[Ger]

Yes. That extra information at the right side in the search result for phpBB website is exactly what I mean.

You mean this?


If I'm not mistaken, this is simply grabbed from Wikipedia. It searches your localised Wikipedia version for a lemma about your search query. If found, the first paragraph is grabbed and presented with some (according to Google) related subjects.

Other than having a Wikipedia item about your site, there's nothing you can do to influence this.

Unless I'm mistaken of course.