Suggested changes to forum template.

[dharrison]

Another thought:  Can we ease up on the blue?

Blue links blue background blue reply text is a mare to read sometimes.

[MuNKy]

Really I think this patching the forum here and there is crap. Trying to get this forum to rank for SEO when the forum itself sucks is a bit of a joke dont you think? I've just checked and there's 4024 are in the supplemental index for crying out loud! Only 116 are in the main index. The forum isnt worth fixing.

I really think the best idea is to upgrade to phpbb3. Then i'll modify an already sef template that will help the forum big-time. Otherwise I think the SEO theme should not be taken seriously and the forum should stay as a 'fun place' where we can laugh and joke around and talk about anything.

[BabyChicken4u2]

Ummm...

There is no need to nofollow, nor exclude new "latest post by" links.....They resolve to the same static post page.

http://www.davidcastle.org/BB/the-big-question-how-vt4008-10.html#45893

Code:

<td width="160" align="center" nowrap><span class="gensmall">
Thu Nov 22, 2007 8:26 am<br /><a href="post45893.html">
View latest post by <br>
Tizzy</a></span></td>

post45893.html

Checked link: http://www.davidcastle.org/BB/post45893.html

Type of redirect: 301 Moved Permanently

Redirected to: http://www.davidcastle.org/BB/the-big-question-how-vt4008-10.html#45893

No reason to change this at all, its perfect.

--Melanie

[ash]

Really I think this patching the forum here and there is crap. Trying to get this forum to rank for SEO when the forum itself sucks is a bit of a joke dont you think? I've just checked and there's 4024 are in the supplemental index for crying out loud! Only 116 are in the main index. The forum isnt worth fixing.

I really think the best idea is to upgrade to phpbb3. Then i'll modify an already sef template that will help the forum big-time. Otherwise I think the SEO theme should not be taken seriously and the forum should stay as a 'fun place' where we can laugh and joke around and talk about anything.

Unfortunately Darren thats the nature of alot of forums. Posts rarely attract inlinks so internal pages stay briefly in the main index before getting dumped into the supplemental.

I know another forum that has 11000 + pages index but only 600 in the 'main' index.

If your volunteering to handle the work, i'm sure neither me nor David would have an objection, (except that i'd wait for the stable release of PHPBB3 to be released).

I'm sure you'll remember i tried to get people interested in developing a SEO friendly template for PHPBB2 but got little / no response. The template still exists in non working format on the development site i gave you the URL.

I also tried to get people interested in developing the homepage 'blog' but again the idea did'nt attract much interest.

If you want to make wholesale changes (and are volunteering to see them through), pitch it to me and David....

[ash]

Ummm...

There is no need to nofollow, nor exclude new "latest post by" links.....They resolve to the same static post page.

http://www.davidcastle.org/BB/the-big-question-how-vt4008-10.html#45893

Code:

<td width="160" align="center" nowrap><span class="gensmall">
Thu Nov 22, 2007 8:26 am<br /><a href="post45893.html">
View latest post by <br>
Tizzy</a></span></td>

post45893.html

Checked link: http://www.davidcastle.org/BB/post45893.html

Type of redirect: 301 Moved Permanently

Redirected to: http://www.davidcastle.org/BB/the-big-question-how-vt4008-10.html#45893

No reason to change this at all, its perfect.

--Melanie

Yeah but if they get indexed by the SE's thats a whole page of duplicate content...

For example this:

http://www.davidcastle.org/BB/the-big-question-how-vt4008-10.html#45893

Is identical to this:

http://www.davidcastle.org/BB/the-big-question-how-vt4008-10.html

[yourweb]

php3 still has a ways to go for it to be stable. Also if you change over to that a lot of the things that have been done on this site will change as well. Not all mods can be added to the site that are already in use here.

The flip side to this is that once it is stable it will be a heck lot better than the other php's.

Munky if you want to mess around with the new version give me a pm. I got the new version set up that you would be able to look at from the back side if you wanted to. You could also make any changes that you wanted to. So let me know if you want to?

[BabyChicken4u2]

then just run a query array in the htaccess to redirect the urls with #

Code:

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} #
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.davidcastle.org/BB/the-big-question-how-vt4008-10.html$1? [R=301,L]

You will just have to configure the ending url to grab the post pages.  Then all urls with # will be redirected to the post page.

--Melanie

[MuNKy]

I think i've done all i can do. The validation, page titles and headings minor changes have helped a bit. I think we will be moving the forum to different software soon. No more blue!

I dont know what they were before but...

The forum now ranks on google.com:
uk seo forum - position 1
seo forum - position 9
search engine optimisation forum - position 17
uk search engine optimisation forum - position 4

The forum now ranks on google.co.uk:
uk seo forum - position 1
seo forum - position 4
search engine optimisation forum - position 12
uk search engine optimisation forum - position 4

[yourweb]

Nice job Munky