SEO - Optimize on phpbb

[dondon pramis]

Hello Everyone! I'm new here in phpbb forum so I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this topic to the admin, just please move this to the right place if i posted to the wrong board.

Sorry for my english its not my mother tongue. Okay! I think im done introducing my self.

Here's the problem! I search everywhere how to optimize my site but i cant find good one. I know the phpbb-seo one but there is no step by step tutorial and i dont want to damage my board. Im not very technical so im not doing that.

I also read that phpbb is no need to optimize the site,.. the bad thing is i cant if i type my website its showing only the main page and some of the category names are showing...however, those topics are not showing.

If i compare to other board which is optimize. when you type the website all of the other topics are showing.

Its highly appreciated, if you guys can provide me some answer. How to improve my site to google index.

My website is http://www.dohangout.com

[HiFiKabin]

Q: Does that mean I should avoid rewriting dynamic URLs at all?

A: That's our recommendation, unless your rewrites are limited to removing unnecessary parameters, or you are very diligent in removing all parameters that could cause problems. If you transform your dynamic URL to make it look static you should be aware that we might not be able to interpret the information correctly in all cases. If you want to serve a static equivalent of your site, you might want to consider transforming the underlying content by serving a replacement which is truly static. One example would be to generate files for all the paths and make them accessible somewhere on your site. However, if you're using URL rewriting (rather than making a copy of the content) to produce static-looking URLs from a dynamic site, you could be doing harm rather than good. Feel free to serve us your standard dynamic URL and we will automatically find the parameters which are unnecessary.

From Google themselves http://phpbb.hifikabin.me.uk/app.php/page/seo

[dondon pramis]

So no need to be SEo or what so ever to gain ranking in google...! You just need a good content..End of story...am i right?

[david63]

You just need a good content..End of story...am i right?

You are right.

I have a site that is "straight out of the box" phpBB - no SEO, no human readable urls, no nothing other than content and it is at least on the first page of any Google search (obviously using the appropriate key words) if not in the top three.

[dondon pramis]

you said appropriate keyword? Can you please show us how? Thanks

[koraldon]

So no need to be SEo or what so ever to gain ranking in google...! You just need a good content..End of story...am i right?

Wrong,
unless you have completely unique content, that is. i.e. if you invent a name of "ksdhfdsjhfjskfsdfsdf", than yes, google will give you a high location.
But assuming you are trying to rank for a phrase with significance for example "Which IRobot model is best", than you are competing with other sites, and google will compare your site to the other sites, using a lot of variables along the way.
In other words, if you have an A+ content, but there are 20 other sites with B content, google will not rank you first unless you are also performing well on the other variables.
You can learn here: https://moz.com/search-ranking-factors

So hifikabin is right, but I assume his content is unique enough so it doesn't attract a lot of competition, or he has the other factors dialed in. It should also be noted that the 1st page includes a lot of variance: 1st location can get 10 times the traffic compared to the last location

For on-page-factors, view here: https://moz.com/learn/seo/on-page-factors
A lot of those factors are not related to the software (i.e. phpbb/mybb/else) but sadly, it seems phpbb is content to ignore some of the factors it does control, instead of improving...

[Pond Life]

I have a site that is "straight out of the box" phpBB - no SEO, no human readable urls, no nothing other than content and it is at least on the first page of any Google search (obviously using the appropriate key words) if not in the top three.

Same here, my site is nine years old and has over 165000 posts, I made a custom style but there's no SEO nonsense. All of that content in those posts is what gets indexed and shows up in search results, bringing in a constant stream of visitors and new members. If your site answers someone's question they are more likely to join, they certainly won't join if there's nothing there for them, no matter how 'pretty' you make the urls.

[dondon pramis]

thanks... my website is just few weeks old...

my website is still on a process of upgrading...making things right...and so on...
but suggestions makes things right and good if cant make things perfect...

[Lumpy Burgertushie]

the question that always comes up is about pretty or human readable URLs. that is what we always tell people is not important.
SEO is important. pretty urls are not important to SEO. google pays little, if any, attention to them any longer.

the things you can pay attention to are things like the name of your site, forum titles, topic titles etc.

google pays attention to H1 tags in the html. your forum titles are in H1 tags.

so, when creating your categories and forums, think about keyword rich names for whatever they are about.

a category named "widget" will not get near as good ranking as one named " blue widgets for curing cancer"

you can even edit other peoples topic titles if you wish to help with keywords.

remember, nobody goes to google looking for your board. they are typing in keywords about whatever they want information about.

if you board has those keywords in the html it will show up in the search engine returns.

if it has those keywords in the titles, in the content etc. and if there are other keywords related to the subject, and if you have inbound and outbound links to other sites with those keywords, then you get ranked high in the SERPs.

that is really all there is to SEO that does what people want.


robert

[koraldon]

thanks... my website is just few weeks old...

my website is still on a process of upgrading...making things right...and so on...
but suggestions makes things right and good if cant make things perfect...

Google is long term strategy to get users, as it takes time to build. Short term get a following on the social networks.

[dondon pramis]

yes im doing that stuff...social media...!! its creating traffic though

[david63]

you said appropriate keyword? Can you please show us how?

The appropriate keyword for this forum would be "phpBB" and entering that into Google would bring up this site, amongst others, but if I entered, for example, "red widgets" then this site would not appear very high, if at all, in a Google search.

You will only get out of Google what you put in - it is a simple as that

[Lumpy Burgertushie]

you said appropriate keyword? Can you please show us how?

The appropriate keyword for this forum would be "phpBB" and entering that into Google would bring up this site, amongst others, but if I entered, for example, "red widgets" then this site would not appear very high, if at all, in a Google search.

You will only get out of Google what you put in - it is a simple as that

it will now.

robert

[dondon pramis]

thanks