Hi,
We have been using SMF now for around a year and have managed to build up a small and strong community that is very active considering our size.
I am wondering how to take it further. I have never been satisfied with how we appear to the likes of Google.
How do I get google to display a short description about what we offer on its results page? I know in Joomla you do this by using the Meta Tags. Is there a similar feature in SMF I am missing out on?
Also, we only need a forum but I sometimes wonder the benifits of having say, a single Joomla page with a detailed SEO page detailing our forum with a single link to the Forum directory. (We dont need or want to use a bridge so a link is fine)
Whats you opinions?
Hi KolaKube,
SEO is a frequently discussed topic here. If you haven't already do a search as it should get you some useful information.
-- Meta tags can be edited manually by opening Themes / default / index.template.php (may be different if you're not using the default theme)
-- You also have two options for SEO. You can use SMF's built in SEO (see admin area > features and options) combined with robots.txt (search robots.txt for details). Alternatively you can install one of the available SEO mods such as prettyurls or SEO4SMF. See the Mod Site (http://mods.simplemachines.org) for details :)
Lainaus käyttäjältä: H - tammikuu 07, 2008, 06:53:44 AP
SEO is a frequently discussed topic here. If you haven't already do a search as it should get you some useful information.
-- Meta tags can be edited manually by opening Themes / default / index.template.php (may be different if you're not using the default theme)
The "description" meta tag is what provides the short descriptions in search engines. You can also put in your own keywords, but they barely count for anything anymore.
Lainaus käyttäjältä: H - tammikuu 07, 2008, 06:53:44 AP
-- You also have two options for SEO. You can use SMF's built in SEO (see admin area > features and options) combined with robots.txt (search robots.txt for details). Alternatively you can install one of the available SEO mods such as prettyurls or SEO4SMF. See the Mod Site (http://mods.simplemachines.org) for details :)
If you are an established site, I recommend not playing with the URLs to your forum. The last thing you probably want is to lose all your old rank because you shifted everything around. While those mods might have the ability to do proper redirecting to the new URL, it is still a big change. In addition, there is little to no benefit of using URLs with keywords in them. I have linked to discussions about this on other topics.
One of the biggest things to concentrate on is getting good quality links going to your community. The more links you have the more likely you are to get some deep indexing of your site to happen. Also, they should be good in-context links with keywords in the link text. "Click here" links won't get you much on the keyword side.
Remember that even the smallest change may take months to show an effect on the search indexes, so be patient.
Hi all, thanks for the replies. Given me a lot to think about and gen up on
can i pay sum1 to do this for me? i am not very technical, and i have already tried to install it once, and it has gone belly up.. uninstalled and reinstalled again.
I think it might be due to the apache thing every1 refers to.
I host my sites with hostgator.
The only thing in the control panel that says apache, is an icon that says 'apache handler'
My version:
Powered by SMF 1.1.3
is it possible? do-able? let me know
What specifically do you want to do? SMF is quite nicely optimized as it is.
An SEO guru disclosed in his blog that URL format is not really a big factor in search engine optimization. The default SMF is good enough. All you have to do is change the meta tag for keywords, but don't change the meta tags for robots as this is important so that you won't get a duplicate page in search index.
The biggest factor in SEO is backlinks, sites pointing to your site. That's all you need.
I've tried SEO4SMF but it doesn't work for me.
yep SEO4SMF does not work for smf 1.14 ..maybe some modifications r needed for mod.. :(
Friendly Url and dynanic metas are MOST important for Google index when spider access to website, so dont think that SMF is good SEO forum.
Also I cant agree with waiting a months for index change or reindexing by Google. My Customers goes in Top 10 when I have about 500.000 competitors in 3 weeks, till max. 2 months for 1-3.000.000.
Google index "works" on every search and is independent form bots so website position can change almost in few minutes, just after few tricks.
With this same quantity and quality of links pointing to Your website You can have place in first or 3-10 page of results. SERP its not only incoming links ;) That would by to easy - dont U think ?
If I have wrong SERP I would go to use ANY mods to have friendly urls.
Best regards
Lainaus käyttäjältä: eline - helmikuu 10, 2008, 07:18:21 AP
Friendly Url and dynanic metas are MOST important for Google index when spider access to website, so dont think that SMF is good SEO forum.
Completely wrong. Keyword-rich URLs offer little to no help in rankings. Also, Google has
never trusted or used the META keywords tag for rankings. The description tag is used for previews in the results, but not for ranking. I'd be happy to dig up my references if you want to push the issue.
Lainaus käyttäjältä: eline - helmikuu 10, 2008, 07:18:21 AP
Also I cant agree with waiting a months for index change or reindexing by Google. My Customers goes in Top 10 when I have about 500.000 competitors in 3 weeks, till max. 2 months for 1-3.000.000.
It all depends on the time of the change, if you have any kind of points against you previously, if you made too many changes at one time, etc. Small changes are usually taken quickly, but switching URLs around, updating all pages (when you don't normally do so), etc. will take much longer to take effect.
Lainaus käyttäjältä: eline - helmikuu 10, 2008, 07:18:21 AP
Google index "works" on every search and is independent form bots so website position can change almost in few minutes, just after few tricks.
Huh? Google's results have to use the index created by the crawlers. It isn't like someone searches and that portion of the index gets rebuilt on the fly.
Lainaus käyttäjältä: eline - helmikuu 10, 2008, 07:18:21 AP
With this same quantity and quality of links pointing to Your website You can have place in first or 3-10 page of results. SERP its not only incoming links ;) That would by to easy - dont U think ?
Indeed. Inbound linking is not the only factor in the ranking of results. A big portion relies on content, page layout, age of the content, etc.
Ab
Lainaus käyttäjältä: Motoko-chan - helmikuu 10, 2008, 12:14:37 IP<br />Lainaus käyttäjältä: eline - helmikuu 10, 2008, 07:18:21 AP<br />Friendly Url and dynanic metas are MOST important for Google index when spider access to website, so dont think that SMF is good SEO forum.<br />
<br /><br />Completely wrong. Keyword-rich URLs offer little to no help in rankings. Also, Google has <i>never</i> trusted or used the META keywords tag for rankings. The description tag is used for previews in the results, but not for ranking. I'd be happy to dig up my references if you want to push the issue.<br />
Meta its not only description but also TITLE, and other meta tags. So I cant agree is not important for google, sorry. First for what G looks is domain name, title, and keywords "in some way" on site.
Metas like keywords pr description are important in other search engines.
Dynamic metas works perfect with horizontal SEO
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Lainaus käyttäjältä: eline - helmikuu 10, 2008, 07:18:21 AP<br />Also I cant agree with waiting a months for index change or reindexing by Google. My Customers goes in Top 10 when I have about 500.000 competitors in 3 weeks, till max. 2 months for 1-3.000.000.<br />
<br /><br />It all depends on the time of the change, if you have any kind of points against you previously, if you made too many changes at one time, etc. Small changes are usually taken quickly, but switching URLs around, updating all pages (when you don't normally do so), etc. will take much longer to take effect.<br />[/quote]
Google can reindex page in few days - is more depence from site traffic and other SEO methods. I redeclare URL and metas on one from main sites and Google reindex 20.000 pages in about 10 days. SERP with many kewords goes up straight.
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Lainaus käyttäjältä: eline - helmikuu 10, 2008, 07:18:21 AP<br />Google index "works" on every search and is independent form bots so website position can change almost in few minutes, just after few tricks.<br />
<br /><br />Huh? Google's results have to use the index created by the crawlers. It isn't like someone searches and that portion of the index gets rebuilt on the fly.<br />[/quote]
NO ? Ive seen many trick when index can change SERP and robots dont visit websites in mean time, so ... its magic or ...
This system can by easy recognized with black seo method when you go specialy in to filter to go out later with validated most of spam links.
Spiders do a database, index and Google alegorithm? is not dependent from this database, just use it.
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Lainaus käyttäjältä: eline - helmikuu 10, 2008, 07:18:21 AP<br />With this same quantity and quality of links pointing to Your website You can have place in first or 3-10 page of results. SERP its not only incoming links<img src="http://www.simplemachines.org/community/Smileys/simple/wink.gif" border="0" alt="" title="" onresizestart="return false;" id="smiley_1_wink.gif" style="padding-left: 6px;" /> That would by to easy - dont U think ?<br />
<br /><br />Indeed. Inbound linking is not the only factor in the ranking of results. A big portion relies on content, page layout, age of the content, etc.<br />[/quote]
With all respect ;) dynamic meta tags are realy important with SEO, and going back to subject I would like to use any mod if I can to have them.
Also they have name "Friendly" not only for spider but for users to.
And most of all look modern, trendy and I dont have any idee why question is "Do they works? SEO Friendly ? , etc"
I will ask "Why dont use it?"