SEO report on my forums (and phpbb improvement)

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koraldon
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SEO report on my forums (and phpbb improvement)

Post by koraldon »

Hi,
I have run some tools of SEO and there are a few issues that can be easily corrected, to improve phpbb SEO (if you believe it is snake oil, none of this will have impact on you).

1.
We detected errors in heading structure...
Assistive technologies such as screen readers use heading tags (h1-h6) to give visitors an overview of a page without the need for them to read through the entire content. Search engines can read headings to determine the importance of page sections. They can then use this information to gauge the page's 'weight' for the search engine listings.
Would a visitor using a Screen Reader be able to quickly find the information they want from these headings?
On main page there is no header level 2 for the forums (or at all). This should be corrected.
I can manually code it into the style but it should be very easy to correct for prosilver and will adhere to web standards.

2. SID links:
All internal url's appear with SID links. While having friendly url's vs. numbers is debateable, this means that there are different url's every time a new session is generated. Why do we need SID at all?
I know that canonnical exists, but this is not for virtual infinite url's...

3. Meta description:
The description meta tag contains 437 characters which is too long.

How do I set the meta description for the main page? I have an extension that does it for each forum (taking the forum description)... but would love a setting to write it for the main page...

I think the three above points should be easy to implement in phpbb and will assist SEO...
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KevC
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Re: SEO report on my forums (and phpbb improvement)

Post by KevC »

.....here we go again...


You should post it on the area51 site. That's where development discussions take place.
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Brf
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Re: SEO report on my forums (and phpbb improvement)

Post by Brf »

koraldon wrote:
2. SID links:
All internal url's appear with SID links
Nope. That is only the first page after you login. Once you are authenticated, the sid disappears.
koraldon wrote:3. Meta description:
The description meta tag contains 437 characters which is too long.
Nope. The "description" meta tag is empty.
koraldon
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Re: SEO report on my forums (and phpbb improvement)

Post by koraldon »

2. This is the result I got from "fetch as google" type of search, not for myself.
It generates "false" url's.

3. I was unclear - that is the description that appears in the search results. Since there is no meta description field, google just picks something. Which is bad.
I solved this via extension for viewtopic.php and viewforum.php, but not for index.php
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Lumpy Burgertushie
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Re: SEO report on my forums (and phpbb improvement)

Post by Lumpy Burgertushie »

apparently your "SEO tools" are either way out of date or simply do not work properly.

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koraldon
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Re: SEO report on my forums (and phpbb improvement)

Post by koraldon »

I will let google know that their tool has no clue about how to optimize sites for google...
Please read next time and stop acting like a troll.

This is how I fixed the headers on my site:
overallheader

Code: Select all

Change <h1>{SITENAME}</h1> to
<h2>{SITENAME}</h2>

forumlist

Code: Select all

changed line 41
<h2><a href="{forumrow.U_VIEWFORUM}" class="forumtitle">{forumrow.FORUM_NAME}</a></h2>
viewforumbody

Code: Select all

changed to h1
<h1 class="forum-title"><!-- EVENT viewforum_forum_name_prepend --><a href="{U_VIEW_FORUM}">{FORUM_NAME}</a><!-- EVENT viewforum_forum_name_append --></h1>

Code: Select all

added h3
<h3><a href="{topicrow.U_VIEW_TOPIC}" class="topictitle">{topicrow.TOPIC_TITLE}</a></h3>
viewtopicbody

Code: Select all

changed to h1
<h1 class="topic-title"><!-- EVENT viewtopic_topic_title_prepend --><a href="{U_VIEW_TOPIC}">{TOPIC_TITLE}</a><!-- EVENT viewtopic_topic_title_append --></h1>
I'm not sure it is optimal and I didn't went to all pages, but at least now it behaves like a normal site....
Khaos-Rage
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Re: SEO report on my forums (and phpbb improvement)

Post by Khaos-Rage »

koraldon wrote: overallheader

Code: Select all

Change <h1>{SITENAME}</h1> to
<h2>{SITENAME}</h2>

viewforumbody

Code: Select all

changed to h1
<h1 class="forum-title"><!-- EVENT viewforum_forum_name_prepend --><a href="{U_VIEW_FORUM}">{FORUM_NAME}</a><!-- EVENT viewforum_forum_name_append --></h1>

So your saying to google and all browsers that the Forum Name is more important than the name of the Site? A bit backwards don't you think?
koraldon
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Re: SEO report on my forums (and phpbb improvement)

Post by koraldon »

H1 should be unique to your page.
For the forums index page, yes the forum name should be H1
but for a topic about monarch butterflies, that should be the H1, not the forum name which can be trips in NZ.
http://www.seoblog.com/2014/09/proper-w ... r-tag-seo/

btw, in default phpbb implementation of H1, even, here, it is used as hidden text - which is negative in google book:
Never use H1 tags in hidden text. H1 has SEO potency, particularly with keyword optimization, so using an H1 tag in a hidden segment makes it look as though you’re trying to shove more important keywords into a piece without value.
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