Almost ready to give up on SMF

Started by dupont24, November 17, 2006, 05:31:04 PM

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dupont24

I am almost ready to give up my short lived experience with smf.... Don't get me wrong I truly like SMF better than all I have used.

  My biggest issue and it never crossed my mind prior to changing from Vbulletin is seo.  SMF is NOT making it easy for search engines to spider the board.  I have been use to just about anything posted on my site being indexed on google and yahoo, WITHIN DAYS. Now i have been running SMF for 2 weeks and all that gets indexed by google is useless things.  I have yet to see google enter a post and spider it.  Yahoo i have only seen in a thread once, prior to this with Vbulletin I could not keep the spiders out, they indexed everything.

I have tried what I think is everything.

SEO friendly url's on.....However I have read debates as to the possibility this does nothing to help and may even hurt indexing.

Google Site Map Done Accepted as Ok

SMF Archive Installed Placed 2 links in index templates as well as  apost leading to archives.

Have a mod rewrite in place directing old vbulletin indexed threads to the correct SMF thread.

I have dynamic keywords installed to sync up with every thread and post.

Prior to to SMF I had approx 8500 indexed pages on google if not more....That grew daily by 25-50 the last couple months.  Now in the last 2 weeks i have had 53 pages indexed and they are all non content/post related.
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=site%3Asprintcupfans.com%2Fsportsforum&btnG=Google+Search&meta=


I have read several believe that google among others more often than not will not accept session id in the url string.  Even in the SEO friendly mode the string still appears to a spider of having sessionid  in the string......

Is there any way to remove this? 

What importance does it serve?

If this is deterring google and other spiders, can we try to figure out if there is a work around?

I would but I don't have a clue how or where to start.

All I do know is that I cannot continue to use SMF with out some sort indexing comparable to Vb.  I have used quite a few post boards VB was imo the best....Then I used SMF and imo is a better postboard in many respects..... But what it betters the others in it loses in the very important SEO field.

I installed a sitemap for google made by I think davlac.....He was going to release a newer version but never did....and if you go to his site he is now using Vbulltin.....That was not very encouraging.

Please give me ideas to help solve this problem.....I want to stay with SMF.

THX
dp24


n1kki6

I have had the same problem getting indexed.  My board has been up over a year with over 60000 posts.

f_inscreenname

Me to. The only spiders i have seen is google and yahoo. nothing else ever shows up. I have even had my site submitted by a professional team and nothing for months.

Toadmund

This is such an issue that I believe somebody must be working on it!
I have installed an archive, a shoutbox and I am looking for anything else, as a matter of fact I spend a lot of time almost everyday looking and hoping someone has the magic solution.

I mean seriously, when this
thread here has been read 1374 times, you know people want it :
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=84811.0

I owe it to the folks who know coding well enough to fix this, so far they have served me well, and will serve me (and you guys and gals) again.

Have patience :)

snoopy_inc

I know im new at this but i just noticed somethin and thought i would post it up.

If i do a site search like you did

google > site:(website.com/forum)  where my forum sits i dont get anything from google

But if i do

Site:website.com i get all my forum indexing etc from there.

That is if i get what you mean by indexing

Defiant

Same issues here I noticed google loved my Invision forum but since I've been using SMF its like watching paint dry google just doesn't like it

dupont24

Thats not the support I was looking for peeps....lol

I have read till i am blue in the face and the problem has to be sessionid in the forum..... PHPBB has a hack to remove it from there board....not endorsing phpbb in any way, I can't even bring myself to read a phpbb forum i dislike it so much.

I am no expert but the posts that do get indexed from other forums do have sessionid in the url....

I have never seen that in other forums indexing....then again I never payed attention either as it was a non issue for me.....

Can we not get some really smart coders and convince them that we need this hack?

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=127806.0

Harro

Just did a search for your site.
If you leave the /sportsforum when searching you'll get over 8 000 rsults, including many forum topics.
As far as I can see this is a google issue, not related to SMF itself.
Here's the link: http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=site%3Asprintcupfans.com&btnG=Search&meta=

But in case you want to do some SEO on your forum I suggest you take a look at this mod: http://www.webmasterstalks.com/seo_4_smf-b46.0/

dupont24

Thanks Harro

I am aware of my indexing however that was all indexed when i was using vbulletin.  Which i changed 2 weeks back.... I know it takes time for indexing but my site was having a 48 hour turn around from post to indexing on google and i think about the same if not less time on yahoo.

Now I see google on my site all the time index spiders and adsense spiders, and just in the last 12 hours i have seen google in threads for the first time in 2 weeks.  I accelerated the googlbot indexing with google and it seemed like just after that it started to crawl threads.

After i have checked many other SMF sites indexing I see the same thing in every description of indexed posts.

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register. Did you miss your activation email?

That is in just about all indexed SMF threads or posts.

That includes webmasterstalks which only has 2500 google indexed threads/posts.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.webmasterstalks.com&btnG=Search&meta=


Thanks anyhow....
dp24

n1kki6

Quote from: dupont24 on November 18, 2006, 10:38:09 AM


After i have checked many other SMF sites indexing I see the same thing in every description of indexed posts.

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register. Did you miss your activation email?

That is in just about all indexed SMF threads or posts.

That includes webmasterstalks which only has 2500 google indexed threads/posts.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.webmasterstalks.com&btnG=Search&meta=


Thanks anyhow....
dp24


Yep, mine too, and this is a big problem especially for google with the duplicate content filter.  Thats why we get screwed in the rankings.

Harro

That's something I also noticed. Got the same on my forum aswell.
But got no idea how to change it though...
The spider should be able to index the real content.

n1kki6

Quote from: Harro on November 18, 2006, 09:40:14 AM
Just did a search for your site.
If you leave the /sportsforum when searching you'll get over 8 000 rsults, including many forum topics.
As far as I can see this is a google issue, not related to SMF itself.
Here's the link: http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=site%3Asprintcupfans.com&btnG=Search&meta=

But in case you want to do some SEO on your forum I suggest you take a look at this mod: http://www.webmasterstalks.com/seo_4_smf-b46.0/


I just tried installing that mod and it rewrote the urls correctly but the links didn't work so i had to uninstall it.

Harro

You can sign up on that forum for support.
But did you rename the htaccess file and set the rewritebase?

Also, don't think the duplicate content filter has anything to do with this.
The content is always different, it's just the description that google makes that's the same for lots of pages.

n1kki6

Quote from: Harro on November 18, 2006, 06:59:59 PM
You can sign up on that forum for support.
But did you rename the htaccess file and set the rewritebase?

Also, don't think the duplicate content filter has anything to do with this.
The content is always different, it's just the description that google makes that's the same for lots of pages.

Right but I think with that showing up as all the desriptions is why so many fall into the ommitted results.  I suppose thats not really duplicate content though. 

bammoeller

I have no problems geting my posts found.
I must say i also update my sitemap every two weeks to help search engines find fresh pages.

Dannii

QuoteAfter i have checked many other SMF sites indexing I see the same thing in every description of indexed posts.

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register. Did you miss your activation email?

That is in just about all indexed SMF threads or posts.

That includes webmasterstalks which only has 2500 google indexed threads/posts.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.webmasterstalks.com&btnG=Search&meta=
That's because it's the first thing in each page pretty much. If you try searching for something rather than just getting your index listing, the excerpt will be specific to your search terms.
"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise."

dupont24

Quote from: eldʌkaː on November 18, 2006, 10:45:57 PM
QuoteAfter i have checked many other SMF sites indexing I see the same thing in every description of indexed posts.

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register. Did you miss your activation email?

That is in just about all indexed SMF threads or posts.

That includes webmasterstalks which only has 2500 google indexed threads/posts.

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.webmasterstalks.com&btnG=Search&meta=
That's because it's the first thing in each page pretty much. If you try searching for something rather than just getting your index listing, the excerpt will be specific to your search terms.


I have tried with mine.....Problem is since switching to SMF it is/was NOT indexing the threads/posts. Since I modded the areas MrCue suggested I have now seen google in threads for the first time.  I am hoping that has solved most of the issue but really don't know at this point.



Quote from: bammoeller on November 18, 2006, 09:59:35 PM
I have no problems geting my posts found.
I must say i also update my sitemap every two weeks to help search engines find fresh pages.

Are you speaking of  seo-webtools.net cuz if you are,you should be more worried than us.  Seo seems to be your theme yet in your google results It is the same utility information in your indexed pages..
I tried searching for pages on your site like eldʌka reccomended and i get nothing.  If thats accepatable for you thats ok, but its something i have to fix.   

dupont24

eldʌkaː I was wondering why in each post there is a link back to each thread/post.  Is that something you think is essential.

What I mean is Almost ready to give up on SMF is linked in every post. Also this link displays yet another different url for the same content.

Will this cause any duplicate content issues?

This is my google indexed thread when i used VB
www.sprintcupfans.com/sprintforum/showthread-t_1248.html

That thread has a mod rewrite to permanently redirect it to the correct SMF thread Which is

http://www.sprintcupfans.com/sportsforum/index.php/topic,1248.0.html

In that thread there is a  url (4x's) that leads to it that looks like this

http://sprintcupfans.com/sportsforum/index.php?topic=1248.msg2376#msg2376

Also

http://sprintcupfans.com/sportsforum/index.php?topic=1248.msg2505#msg2505

Also

http://sprintcupfans.com/sportsforum/index.php?topic=1248.msg2648#msg2648

Also

http://sprintcupfans.com/sportsforum/index.php?topic=1248.msg2650#msg2650

Also

http://sprintcupfans.com/sportsforum/index.php?topic=1248.msg2777#msg2777

Thankfully the archive is not different.

Do you think this could be an issue with SMF?

It just seems like unnessary links imo and maybe makes it difficult to spider.


青山 素子

Some things have been updated in SMF 1.1 final to help indexing duplicate content.
Motoko-chan
Director, Simple Machines

Note: Unless otherwise stated, my posts are not representative of any official position or opinion of Simple Machines.


dupont24

Quote from: Motoko-chan on December 03, 2006, 01:03:38 AM
Some things have been updated in SMF 1.1 final to help indexing duplicate content.


I wish I was having the duplicate indexing problem.......But i am getting nothing....

I have tried everything and SMF threads/ posts are invisible 99% of the time to spiders.

For those that support seo in smf.... thats fine continue to support it.....  I now know SMF is  great forum software but is the worst for seo.  Not all folks need indexing so thats fine...  I however do want to be on an island in the world wide web.... SMF is putting my site there quickly.


With vbulletin 9000 plus pages indexed in the last 18 months

With SMF in the first week.....50  not bad except not one was content related
week 2 nothing
week 3  50 reduced to 19

Contrary to what some believe there is an issue with spider and smf.

I wish there was not but there is.  I have done my homework now and will be changing to a bb that indexes substantially better....


Heres on more example.... I tried this for my own benefit.....setup a site with 8 html content pages....very basic...  I also added SMF with a link from every page to the forum.  added the site to my webmaster account with google... it was spidered and indexed in less than a week... ALL 8 HTML....and still 2 weeks later the forum only has the index.php indexed....not 1 post.

That speaks volumes to me.

You folks are all great here and i wish you the best of luck and thank you for all your help.

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