Simple Machines Community Forum

Customizing SMF => Building Your Community and other Forum Advice => Topic started by: MTBE on December 09, 2022, 07:07:08 PM

Title: How to get Forum noticed?
Post by: MTBE on December 09, 2022, 07:07:08 PM
I am a complete newbie at this.  I started a forum using epizy as the host and SMF as the forum base.

I'm trying to get the forum noticed, or at least indexed on Google search.  When I do the process for "Google Search Console", it has me download a file that I'm supposed to put on my website to verify it.

But, I don't know where or how to add it.

Any help at all because I'm completely lost.  I may not even have the terminology correct in my post...

Other than this verification, any other help on how to get the forum noticed?
Title: Re: How to get Forum noticed?
Post by: lurkalot on December 09, 2022, 07:34:14 PM
You need to upload that verification file to your forum root directory.  The folder where all your SMF files are sitting.
Title: Re: How to get Forum noticed?
Post by: MTBE on December 09, 2022, 07:48:54 PM
Quote from: lurkalot on December 09, 2022, 07:34:14 PMYou need to upload that verification file to your forum root directory.  The folder where all your SMF files are sitting.

Those sit on my hard drive?  Because it says to upload to the forum site....
Title: Re: How to get Forum noticed?
Post by: Aleksi "Lex" Kilpinen on December 10, 2022, 02:55:53 AM
Quote from: MTBE on December 09, 2022, 07:48:54 PM
Quote from: lurkalot on December 09, 2022, 07:34:14 PMYou need to upload that verification file to your forum root directory.  The folder where all your SMF files are sitting.

Those sit on my hard drive?  Because it says to upload to the forum site....

Google offers multiple ways to do this, usually the easiest options are either

1) Download a html file, that you then need to upload to your hosting at the same location as your forums main index.php

2) Edit your DNS records to include a verification code that Google provides.

In both cases, your site needs to be accessible to the public, and Google needs to be able to access the added verification info.