Some SEO Tricks

[Microdot]

Hello, I'm not sure if anyone has already discovered these so I'm sorry if this isn't new info.

Been using SMF for about a week, and am very impressed. The only "problem" (which is the same with all forum software) was the lack of SEO but it was very easy to fix as you will see. This isn't a complete guide to SEO by any means but it will improve things and all these tips are legal. I'm also using Seo4SMF.

I worked on the default template of 1.1.1

MAKE A BACK UP BEFORE YOU DO THIS - JUST INCASE!
I am using this on my own forum and it works perfect though.
(Browse through http://www.rinf.com/forum/index.php [nofollow] and compare with your forum)

Firstly I opened index.template.php and at the very beginning of the Head tag put:

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<title>', $context['page_title'], '</title>
<meta name="description" content="', $context['page_title'], '" />', empty($context['robot_no_index']) ? '' : '
<meta name="robots" content="noindex" />', '
<meta name="keywords" content="', $modSettings['meta_keywords'], '" />
This is mainly moving your title and meta further up the page so the bot finds it faster.

In the same doc, in the first table under the Body, I did..

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<td class="catbg" height="32">';

if (empty($settings['header_logo_url']))
echo '
<h1><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 140%; ">', $context['page_title'],  '</span></h1>';
else
echo '
<img src="', $settings['header_logo_url'], '" style="margin: 4px;" alt="', $context['forum_name'], '" />';

echo '
</td>

That's just a H tag and replaces your forum name to the name of the topic on each post, set the H tag to any size you like.

Now onto the tabs..

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// How about the [search] button?
if ($context['allow_search'])
echo ($current_action == 'search' || $context['browser']['is_ie4']) ? '<td class="maintab_active_' . $first . '">&nbsp;</td>' : '' , '
<td valign="top" class="maintab_' , $current_action == 'search' ? 'active_back' : 'back' , '">
<a href="', $scripturl, '?action=search" title="search this forum for YOUR KEYWORD(S) HERE">' , $txt[182] , '</a>
</td>' , $current_action == 'search' ? '<td class="maintab_active_' . $last . '">&nbsp;</td>' : '';

This creates a tool tip drop down on your top navigation, you can put keywords in here (do not go OTT and stuff them though). I've just used the 'Search' button as an example, you will want to do this on all your tabs.

Another idea could be to place all the javascript in the head inside external .js files, and link them in. I haven't tried this yet though. This helps bots crawl pages a bit better.

Pretty basic stuff really but I haven't seen it posted here before. I know SMF can be made even more SE Friendly and it's something I'll be working on, when I figure out more I'll post it here.

[MegaTinkerCoder]

There is an interesting talk on the robots.txt thread that is going on involving much of this...

[Microdot]

Thanks, I did a search but couldn't find the thread (actually I found lots about robots.txt) could you link me to the right thread?

[Chriss Cohn]

Yes is that the best way for "dynamic page titles" and changing meta descriptions?
Does this als work within a bridged SMF?

Regards Christian

[wk38]

My site has been out for a couple months. I have the search engine friendly option checked and I have Google spiders crawling all over my site during the day along with others. I can't even find my site in Google other than the paid sponsor listing I have with them. Do I just need to wait longer for them to index?

[Karmalakas]

have you tried registering your site to www.dmoz.org ?

[wk38]

No but I just did. Thanks!

[MegaTinkerCoder]

www.dmoz.org helps alot!!! Its hard to get in lately though, I am trying to update a site and if your moderator is a bit slow it can take along time to get it changed.