After spending MANY hours scouring these forums for info on Google and Indexing, I just thought id take the chance to say that while I too was like many people and struggled to have their forum indexed, I am now completely, all threads and many of them listed number 1 in google results for simple strings.
Basically what im saying is to lay off the poor tech staff at Simple Machines who provide us this brilliant software free of charge, there is no problem with the way the Google bots read it or the way its spidered. Iv seen so many people on here blast the hell out of the Simple Machines staff , waving words around like "Iv had enough off SMF, if they cant sort this out then im jumping ship .... this is a MASSIVE problem ... yada yada yada "
Admittedly it was harder then usual to to get my site indexed, but I doubt this has to do with SMF its self, more then likely to do with Google upping the stakes in order to get noticed now days.. People just tend to think they can create a forum and instantly Google will notice it and list you in top priority. Why should it ? Unless you've proven your site has valuable content?
Anyway , im not here to say the same things others have already said in threads, im just putting my 2c in and saying that it IS very possible to become listed, and listed properly. And there are no extra special tricks or hacks to do it, but theres a few things you can do for good measure
Heres a few tips I used to get mine listed.
Backlinks
We all know this one ... Simply put, just get your links out there ... If you have a descent thread on something you think might appear more like an article , then post it onto sites like DIGG , or REDDIT . If you use other forums , add your sites URL to your signature.
Post your links on other well indexed sites.. Simple stuff , it just increases your web presense.
Dynamic META Tags
Ok so this was the only real trick i used ... And most people will tell you that it really dosnt even make a difference . Im not sure whether it did or not , but I used this trick , and it seemed to work for me. And also I like the idea of it .. Theres a simple and easy way to do it. You can see here --> http://gazeek.com/content/view/81/26/
Quality Content
Use proper words ! The first post in your threads are usually read first .. Write something clear and in real english .. Not 14 year old school girl on her first mobile SMS talk.
SEO
I didnt use any special SEO tricks, Mod rewrite and all those. ... I know of tools like SEO4SMF and things, and they all look great , but It wasnt neccessary in the end .. So use these if you want, but dont think that if you dont , you'll never get listed ... The only thing I used was the standard , Friendly search links switch in the SMF config.
Clean up your template
If you wrote your own template .. Clean it up a bit .. Dont chuck in too much junk , or if you do , keep it down the bottom , not up the top.
Give It Time !
Theres no time limit to when you'll be indexed, if at all ... In my case my entire site has been indexed in under 2 months . But I think thats a pretty good result , it may take many more months in some peoples cases.
So please, stop flaming the mods around here guys and just put more effort into your site, and when it does get indexed, your content will appear as quality , not just endless junk links.
Cheers ;)
ps . My forum can be found here --> www.soundpunk.com
Great post. Thank you for sharing your experience. It is people like you that really make this a good community.
Lainaus käyttäjältä: 青山素子 - huhtikuu 29, 2007, 12:49:54 IP
Great post. Thank you for sharing your experience. It is people like you that really make this a good community.
You mean GREAT community ;)
Thank you cheyne :)
not a problem guys ;) Keep up the good work !
nice i will try this out on my new forum i am creating now
Just another note on this ...
Display Recent Posts On Index
Honestly I think this has played a big part in my site being indexed.. I havnt seen this really mentioned elsewhere, and im sure some of the chin strokers out there may shoot me down about it , but it was after I enabled Show Recent Posts On Forum Index from within the CURRENT TEMPLATE options that I begun to get indexed...
And here's the clincher ... My site was indexed in stages , (believe me I was monitoring it daily) from 10 pages indexed, to 40 to 60 to 100 and so on ... BUT I was noticing a strange trend with the pages that were being picked up , and I couldnt figure out WHY some threads were being indexed and others werent ..
Ie , a sticky'd thread of the top of the main forum index, wouldnt be seen , but a thread thats only had 3 posts on it has .... And then it hits me , Google hits the front page , and theres a direct link to these threads listed in the RECENT POSTS box , it spiders it and picks it up ... And this theory was right because all of the threads on mine that were being indexed, HAD recent posts, and had recently been displayed on the front recent posts box ...
Need more proof ? ..
All of the thread URLs by default are something like http://www.soundpunk.com/index.php?topic=104.0 right ? .. So how come hardly any of my indexed threads are actually listed in that URL format ?? See for your self here (http://www.google.com.au/search?q=site%3Asoundpunk.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a)... The majority of my indexed threads are listed like this:
http://www.soundpunk.com/index.php?topic=106.msg1919;topicseen#msg1919
ie the actual posts URL .. Which also happens to be the same URL that is displayed as the RECENT POSTS URL ..
So basically , all my posts, that have recently been displayed within the RECENT POSTS section on the front page , were being picked up .... It was a direct link gateway to deeper into my forums .... and dont quote me , but it looks like Google interprets the whole ".msg114;topicseen#287372" etc as more of a unique URL than the other ...
Maybe some of you techs out there will disagree with me and thats fine, I havnt really delved to much into the source of SMF , but I thought id just share my experiences , and this particular one sounds a little to coincidental for it not to be right ...
If your having trouble being indexed, or if you were like me , and WERE indexed , but NONE of your actual threads were listed, just peoples profiles etc ... Try adding the RECENT POSTS section to your front page , (Under Current Template) , and set it to show about 5 results .... See what happens ...
and p.s .. I now have 301 indexed pages ;) .. Yet I only have 200 threads lol ... I guess the spiders really cut loose ..
http://www.google.com.au/search?q=site%3Asoundpunk.com&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
Man, you are good. Perfect work.
Hugs!
Heheh , cheers mate ... Hope it works for you too ;)
Wouldn't change my SMF for anything but still having problems with indexing, a few good points on this thread and I will be following them up, however I have a few points and questions to add
I run two SMF forums, the big one gets a few hundred posts a day and the small one, one or two posts a day.
What have I done toget the small one indexed, nothing, no backlinks, no sitmap, good content and guess what its indexed.
The big one loads of backlinks, loads of content, loads of posts, site map and....not indexed
Still working at it...
I do think there is an element of luck involved .... The google bots work in mysterious ways ... I dont think anyone can answer your question as to WHY ones indexed and ones not , but you can take measures to ensure it looks "prettier" to the spiders when they come knocking ..
Lainaus käyttäjältä: cheyne - huhtikuu 29, 2007, 04:50:24 AP
Dynamic META Tags
Ok so this was the only real trick i used ... And most people will tell you that it really dosnt even make a difference . Im not sure whether it did or not , but I used this trick , and it seemed to work for me. And also I like the idea of it .. Theres a simple and easy way to do it. You can see here --> http://gazeek.com/content/view/81/26/
Some people think this trick is a bad idea (http://www.webmaster-talk.com/seo-talk-forum/55406-dynamic-meta-tags-a-good-idea.html)