Possible improvements to 'Forum SEO'

[Martin_K]

As an add on to Stoker's Forum SEO, I put the following code in my overall_header:

Code: Select all

<!-- IF SCRIPT_NAME == "index" -->
<!-- These are only shown on the index -->
<meta name="keywords" content=" enter your keywords for your site here" />
<meta name="description"content="Description of Site Here." />
<!-- ELSEIF SCRIPT_NAME == 'viewforum'-->
<meta name="keywords" content="{FORUM_SEO_KEY}" />
<meta name="description" content="{FORUM_SEO_DESC}" />
<!-- ELSEIF SCRIPT_NAME == "viewtopic" -->
<meta name="keywords" content="{TOPIC_TITLE}" />
<meta name="description" content="{TOPIC_TITLE}" />
<!-- ENDIF -->

The idea is to make sure the index page has its own keywords and description. Viewforum takes its from Stoker's Forum SEO and topic title is inserted in description and keyword content for topic pages.

Ideally I'd like to take the first 160 characters from the first post in a topic and insert them in the description, for viewtopic. The reason for this is Google currently includes usernames, which I don't want to display in the Google search.

If anyone can code this for me, a donation will be given,

or it may be a useful add-on to Forum SEO.

[Martin_K]

I've found this page: Dynamic Meta Descriptions on phpbb.com forums, so will have a go with this.

[Steve]

https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/auth ... ributions/

Take a look there at index and topic seo

[Martin_K]

I am very happy combining all Stoker's SEO snippets and Forum SEO with the script from the first post, they work well together when combined in this way:

Code: Select all

<!-- IF SCRIPT_NAME == "index" -->
<!-- These are only shown on the index -->
<meta name="keywords" content=" enter your keywords for your site here" />
<meta name="description"content="Description of Site Here." />
<!-- ELSEIF SCRIPT_NAME == 'viewforum'-->
<meta name="keywords" content="{FORUM_SEO_KEY}" />
<meta name="description" content="{FORUM_SEO_DESC}" />
<!-- ELSEIF SCRIPT_NAME == "viewtopic" -->
<meta name="keywords" content="{TOPIC_TITLE}, {S_META_KEYWORDS}" />
<meta name="description" content="{TOPIC_TITLE}, {S_META_DESCRIPTION}" />
<!-- ENDIF -->

where S_META_KEYWORDS and S_META_DESCRIPTION are produced by the script from the link in my first post.

The only issues might be with filtering out real names and common words for keywords, advice for which is given in the post on phpbb.com.

[Martin_K]

I have found another (non phpbb approved mod) which handles keywords especially more effectively than the above mentioned script. Not sure if I am even allowed to name it here as it is from a site that phpBB doesn't seem to like or approve of.

It does use a single line in overall_header which injects a number of meta tags via {META_TAG}. By default it injects values into the following:

Code: Select all

'title' => '<meta name="title" content=" " />',
		'description' => '<meta name="description" content=" ">',
		'keywords' => '<meta name="keywords" content=" " />',
		'category' => '<meta name="category" content=" " />',
		'robots' => '<meta name="robots" content=" " />',
		'distribution' => '<meta name="distribution" content=" " />',
		'resource-type' => '<meta name="resource-type" content=" " />',
		'copyright' => '<meta name="copyright" content=" " />',

but you can comment out any of these, and create your own board defaults for these instead. It is a bit harder now to get specific keywords and description for Index and Stoker's Forum SEO back in, but I'm sure its possible.

Not sure whether topic title should go into description, as I did earlier, and whether it is worth leaving category content as 'general', or trying to put in some general terms to cover the range of content on our forum.

[Martin_K]

I have to say I have got some amazing results by using Forum SEO in combination with other methods for our forum. Forum SEO has helped forums with little or no content getting into the first page of results, and we are up against merchants, manufacturers and large forums that are publicly accessible and have thousands of visits and users.

All the methods work well together, but to prioritise:
1) Both from Stoker, thanks. I'd say Forum SEO should definitely be used with viewtopic.php?f=45&t=1282, for good clean results. There is no point having the name of your forum in the page title of every post, less can be more here. Then good descriptions and keywords are important. Having a large number of forums and subforums can help, when you set up the forum. Eg we have boiler manufacturers as sub forums of Appliances, subforum of Technical. And the manufacturer forums are where some of our most impressive results have happened. So planning of forum structure can help get the most our of Forum SEO.
2) Some method of getting first line of post into description
3) Some method of getting the best keywords out of each post
4) Getting good topic titles - work out ways to encourage your forum users to use descriptive topic titles
5) Use Webmaster tools to check the pages are being indexed the way you want them

I know Steve's SEO mods allow even greater control of keywords and descriptions on topic level, but unless you have a small forum or a number of admins and mods prepared to help out with this, because users won't then automation is a good second best option, and topic title probably carries more weight than keywords and descriptions, though they all help.