SMF & SEO - Archive for SMF

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It creates an archived version for your forum, just like vBulletin and IPB forums have.

For some reason that helps with the SEO of the forum.

Is this script supported for SMF 1.1 RC2 version?
I installed the script but i don't see anything different. Do i have to enable it first?

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Hehe, I checked it allready for you (maybe you didn't read the instructions or I didn't explained this good)

The script works fine with all SMF versions, and it is located to yourforumurl.com/archive.php

Now you have to add a link to that page from all pages of your site (by editing the index.template.php file)

Oh, yea... I was reading the readme but i didn't see any instructions....
Anyway.... I will do it...
Thank you

I notice a mod called SMF Archive here:
http://mods.simplemachines.org/index.php?mod=339 ,
Is this yours Nikolas?
I'd like to install your mod on a new forum I'm setting up, to help it get listed in the big G.
It'll be interesting to see what GS Sitecrawler (an wml sitemap creator) makes of it.

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No this is not mine, and with a quick look at this code I saw that this mod is not using search engine friendly urls (it has query strings)

Anyway if you want to try both let me know so I email you my script.

BTW welcome to webdigity

Yes please Nikolas, that would be great. I'd like to see your take on this mod, as your code clearly works well!

Mind you, I think that SEs handle query strings much better than they used to, except session IDs. I'm thinking the problem is more likely to be one of apparent duplicate content.

I'm looking at putting this kind of thing in .htaccess to offset the duplicate content issues;

Code:

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /forum/*.msg*
Disallow: /forum/*sa=showPosts*
Disallow: /forum/*prev_next*
Disallow: /forum/*action=printpage*
Disallow: /forum/*action=recent*

as suggested on the SMF forums;
http://www.simplemachines.org/community/?topic=112100.30
 I'm hoping I can create a lo-fi archive without incurring still further duplicate content penalties!

I'm impressed with your concept of the SE's poor understanding of the layout of SMF pages, as I'd noticed already that the profiles and user stats rank better than the threads.

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Mind you, I think that SEs handle query strings much better than they used to, except session IDs. I'm thinking the problem is more likely to be one of apparent duplicate content.

This is true. But pages with query strings are getting indexed less frequently than pages without.

The .htaccess rules you posted are not so helpfull as restring access to some pages can harm you. The best thing to do is rewrite the templates - or even the sources files - to display the links, and find some sources that link to the correct urls. This way you help search engines to decide which of the duplicate content to index.

That's one of the reason that you need the archive modification.

PS: I will email you the mod in a sec

I have the Archive mod running and I'm thinking, probably I should disallow Google bot to totally access the actual posts in the actual forum since if they visit those posts and visit the posts in the Forum Archive, wouldn't Googlebot see that they are duplicate content?

I'm asking because I checked Google and although the posts in my Forum Archive in Google they are hidden (supposedly because they are duplicate content). How to deal with this?

Also I checked Google for: site:webdigity.com/forums and there was only ONE result. I thought Google was able to spider posts in your forum, Nikolas?

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Also I checked Google for: site:webdigity.com/forums and there was only ONE result. I thought Google was able to spider posts in your forum, Nikolas?

This is because the only page in the forum with this url directory is the board index. All the threads are after the site's root (check url:www.webdigity.com)

Regarding the duplicate content there is no problem. There is a big talk about that, but you should know that google wont penalize you for that. It is just decides which of the duplicate content is the best to put in the SERPs. To understand that google needs to see links, and that's the job of the archive script. While google regullarly will get about 5 urls for each thread in the forum, the archive produces more links to the pages you want to get weight.

Here's the prob, posts in the Archive of my forum are in Google, but they don't appear as SERP. Apparently they're considered redundant threads.

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 6 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

In my case, if you click the link "repeat the search with the omitted results included." you will see the posts in the Archive of the forum. So how can I make these posts appear in SERP and not be omitted because they're considered redundant?

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That's what you want Geezmo

If you browse an SMF forum as a bot, you will mention many different urls showing the same page, right?

The archive as links to the correct urls, helps the search engine decide which is the right url. So the main purpose of this script is to product link popularity to the actual threads.

The only archive threads that exist in the SERPs are those who are bigger than one page, and displayed as one page in the archive. Those are actually "unique" pages, so the search engines will actually put them in SERPs

http://mods.simplemachines.org/index.php?mod=341
An Error Has Occurred!
Sorry but no mod was found

Nikolas could u send me that script for archive? thanx.

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http://mods.simplemachines.org/index.php?mod=341
An Error Has Occurred!
Sorry but no mod was found

Nikolas could u send me that script for archive? thanx.

I've sent you a pm

ok, thank u. and why is your mod deleted from official smf site?

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ok, thank u. and why is your mod deleted from official smf site?

Maybe because I require from those who use it, to have a link back to my site

i think it would better for u that mod be on official site , but ok, thats your choise 

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i think it would better for u that mod be on official site , but ok, thats your choise 

To be honest I don't really care for that. I've just putted a lot of work to make this mod (which is really working regarding SEO) and I think a link back is not an expensive payment....

Hey Nick, any chance that lovely archive script heading my way? 

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