YASEOT Yet Another SEO Topic...

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Master_Cylinder
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YASEOT Yet Another SEO Topic...

Post by Master_Cylinder »

I've read some of the debates on SEO for phpBB and both sides seem to have valid points so I'm still confused whether or not to install Ultimate SEO (or premod) or whether it's a waste.

Surely, it must work for some admins or they wouldn't have so many that use it and swear that it helps their rankings. Maybe it's less of an impact than it used to be before but there has to be *something* to it, right?

On the other side if you have great content and a following you'll do well in rankings anyway and maybe human readable urls, for example, really only make people feel better and it does nothing for rankings. I know I'd prefer a human readable url over the more cryptic versions even though the content could be exactly the same but that doesn't mean that a SEO MOD would help my rank any.


Thoughts?
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Pony99CA
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Re: YASEOT Yet Another SEO Topic...

Post by Pony99CA »

I think you're off-topic here. Area51 is for discussing phpBB development, not existing features/MODs in phpBB. Discussing SEO MODs should probably be (and has been) done on phpbb.com

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Master_Cylinder
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Re: YASEOT Yet Another SEO Topic...

Post by Master_Cylinder »

I thought this was the place to chat about chit...
"Chit Chat
Want to chit chat about anything, do it here ... posting here won't increase your post count (or shouldn't!)."

You don't have to join in if you don't want.

*shrug*
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Pony99CA
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Re: YASEOT Yet Another SEO Topic...

Post by Pony99CA »

My bad -- I didn't check which forum it was posted in (I just do a View New Posts and tend to forget that there's a Chit Chat forum here). :oops:

Nonetheless, there is lots of discussion about SEO on phpBB.com (as your topic name implies), so is it really necessary to rehash it here? ;) As for people who swear by it, have they conducted an experiment with an estabilished forum that didn't have it, collected usage stats, then installed the MOD and collected usage stats again? If not, they can't be sure that it worked (and even that method isn't ideal; if somebody slashdotted you just after you installed the MOD, you might think that the MOD helped).

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Re: YASEOT Yet Another SEO Topic...

Post by Master_Cylinder »

If I had the info that I wanted I wouldn't have started yet another seo thread but perhaps I'm the only one still unsure here. I thought I'd get better information here than the seo premod/ultimate forums.

I'm still torn but I'd imagine that it helps some more than others and, maybe, that might be enough reason to try it rather than not.
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Arty
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Re: YASEOT Yet Another SEO Topic...

Post by Arty »

While I do prefer easy to read URLs, all its other features are useless at best and there are too many drawbacks of that mod/premod to even consider using it.

Because of the way phpBB handles URL creation process it is not possible for mod (and in 3.1 extension) to change URLs without rewriting a lot of php code. So that mod changes large chunks of code. That causes problems with other mods.

That mod also changes templates for no good reason, inserting lot of outdated junk such as keywords meta and changing some URLs in templates. Those meta tags are useless, no search engine uses it. Changing templates is bad way of rewriting URLs, it should be done in php code. Because of that if you use premod you will not be able to use most styles. If you do not use premod you'll have hard time adjusting styles to work with that mod.

It causes more problems than it helps.

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Re: YASEOT Yet Another SEO Topic...

Post by Master_Cylinder »

Thanks for the reply...

I'm not sure that I agree that everything other than human readable urls is useless. I think meta tags were *more* important than they are now, after google's penguin updates, but I do think they're still weighted to some degree. The sitemap tool they include should help some too. I doubt other tools, like zero duplicates, etc would even be needed if the urls weren't rewritten but if they are then those tools would be helpful too. Frankly, I don't know what all the changes are that seomod/premod makes but I still have to believe that they help most of the people that use it or less people would. I just can't believe that it's all placebo effect, that's not logical.

You'd definitely know more than I would about how it is/should be done as far as the code goes but a lot of MODs cause problems with the core code and other MODs which is one reason 3.1 is getting a new system, right? I know I've had some problems installing some mods and people have problems with styles too. There is a list of incompatible MODs on the seo mod website.

I think you've hit the nail on the head; the seo mod/premod *might* cause more problems than they fix but the problems are different. The seo mod/premod might fix a few issues that help rankings in SEO/SERP but might break things like styles and a few mods that I may or may not want.

I'd imagine it could be done better if it were done in the core rather than a 3rd party MOD but it doesn't seem like that's going to happen. So what are the alternatives for when an admin/webmaster wants to maximize his/her SEO/SERP if the are no good MODs and nothing in the core to address that? Surely you're not suggesting that it's already fully SEO/SERP optimized, are you? There are ways that phpBB could be more SEO/SERP friendly, right? Is it just that it's hard to code so the devs don't want to or do the devs avoid it because search engines sometimes change their weighting/factoring and it'd be a PITA to keep up with? Surely, many admins/webmasters would want core code tweaks if it would help them be more visible/rank higher. If not a MOD, how? Please don't say more/better content, I'm talking about the html/php side of it and, obviously, if content would help a non-optimized site then it should help an optimized site even more.
These kids today...
Buy them books, send them to school and what do they do?

They eat the paste. :lol:

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