Comments on: IP.Board and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) http://www.dancryer.com/2009/12/ip-board-and-search-engine-optimisation-seo Dan Cryer - Leeds Web Developer Mon, 06 Sep 2010 22:05:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Arnold Wichern http://www.dancryer.com/2009/12/ip-board-and-search-engine-optimisation-seo#comment-2181 Arnold Wichern Mon, 17 May 2010 20:03:21 +0000 http://www.dancryer.com/?p=301#comment-2181 i really enjoy reading your posts here and i've been watching from a distance but felt i should let you know. keep posting. is there a RSS feed? I just downloaded bloglines and want to put your blog in there. i really enjoy reading your posts here and i’ve been watching from a distance but felt i should let you know. keep posting. is there a RSS feed? I just downloaded bloglines and want to put your blog in there.

]]> By: Brandon Sheley http://www.dancryer.com/2009/12/ip-board-and-search-engine-optimisation-seo#comment-328 Brandon Sheley Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:35:04 +0000 http://www.dancryer.com/?p=301#comment-328 Sorry, that should of been for the last 2 years, I don't see how I can edit my comment. Maybe if I was logged in I could, if you want to edit my post, feel free. Sorry, that should of been for the last 2 years, I don’t see how I can edit my comment. Maybe if I was logged in I could, if you want to edit my post, feel free.

]]> By: Brandon Sheley http://www.dancryer.com/2009/12/ip-board-and-search-engine-optimisation-seo#comment-327 Brandon Sheley Sat, 05 Dec 2009 14:33:43 +0000 http://www.dancryer.com/?p=301#comment-327 I'm actually an application developer for the state, but I've ran my own business for the last year and it did involve some search engine marketing and seo if the client needed it. It was all centered around vBulletin though, IPB is rather new to me. I’m actually an application developer for the state, but I’ve ran my own business for the last year and it did involve some search engine marketing and seo if the client needed it. It was all centered around vBulletin though, IPB is rather new to me.

]]> By: Dan Cryer http://www.dancryer.com/2009/12/ip-board-and-search-engine-optimisation-seo#comment-324 Dan Cryer Sat, 05 Dec 2009 12:13:55 +0000 http://www.dancryer.com/?p=301#comment-324 Out of interest, Brandon, do you work in a search related job (SEO/SEM, etc.) ? :) Out of interest, Brandon, do you work in a search related job (SEO/SEM, etc.) ? :)

]]> By: Brandon Sheley http://www.dancryer.com/2009/12/ip-board-and-search-engine-optimisation-seo#comment-314 Brandon Sheley Sat, 05 Dec 2009 04:34:40 +0000 http://www.dancryer.com/?p=301#comment-314 Hello Dan, I’m not taking it personally, but I did think it did stick out to me because I had just asked about it in the forums. I understand you want brand recognition, but to suffer in terms of your SERP’s is not the way to do it. Having a quality logo and enforcing the brand throughout the site is what I always suggest to friends asking my input, don’t add “yoursitename.com” to the title of every post, you should rank well for that phrase anyway with the backlinks alone. Google will give the highest “ranking” if you will, to the text in the title closest to the left. This is the same with your meta description and also carries through to the forum descriptions that I talked about earlier. I’m not planning to use a sitemap right now for my new forum and it’s already well indexed. It’s nice for those who may not know to much about how search engines work and just want to cover all grounds in case they miss a link or something, but I don’t feel it’s needed. I’d say a robots.txt file is more important than a sitemap. You can tell the search engines to focus on only best content which is always updated. I’m not sure I follow you on your meta “alone” comment? I’m getting a bit tired though, so that may be why. SEO is what you do to your own site, plain and simple. You can’t “search engine optimize” a site that isn’t yours, therefore it’s a form of advertising/marketing. Anyways, keep up the good work. I’m trying to get into blogging more these days, we’ll see how that turns out..lol Nice catching you on Twitter. -Brandon Hello Dan,
I’m not taking it personally, but I did think it did stick out to me because I had just asked about it in the forums. I understand you want brand recognition, but to suffer in terms of your SERP’s is not the way to do it. Having a quality logo and enforcing the brand throughout the site is what I always suggest to friends asking my input, don’t add “yoursitename.com” to the title of every post, you should rank well for that phrase anyway with the backlinks alone. Google will give the highest “ranking” if you will, to the text in the title closest to the left. This is the same with your meta description and also carries through to the forum descriptions that I talked about earlier.
I’m not planning to use a sitemap right now for my new forum and it’s already well indexed. It’s nice for those who may not know to much about how search engines work and just want to cover all grounds in case they miss a link or something, but I don’t feel it’s needed. I’d say a robots.txt file is more important than a sitemap. You can tell the search engines to focus on only best content which is always updated.
I’m not sure I follow you on your meta “alone” comment? I’m getting a bit tired though, so that may be why.
SEO is what you do to your own site, plain and simple.
You can’t “search engine optimize” a site that isn’t yours, therefore it’s a form of advertising/marketing.
Anyways, keep up the good work. I’m trying to get into blogging more these days, we’ll see how that turns out..lol
Nice catching you on Twitter.
-Brandon

]]> By: Dan Cryer http://www.dancryer.com/2009/12/ip-board-and-search-engine-optimisation-seo#comment-308 Dan Cryer Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:36:05 +0000 http://www.dancryer.com/?p=301#comment-308 Hi Brandon, Thanks for the comment. Just to clarify a few things, as I don't feel most of your items are corrections, more misunderstandings: Firstly, my apologies for calling you out in particular (I hope you don't take offence), but from all the work I've seen done, there's no real provable benefit either way, and (IMO), it can only really reinforce the site brand to have it included in the title. Uniqueness is important, but that does not necessarily mean there should be no common elements. I've certainly seen a number of big name sites follow this logic, namely BBC News, Google, The Guardian, MSNBC, Twitter, etc. When I mentioned sitemaps, it was more an option, as opposed to a requirement. I've found them to be invaluable on my own sites when first getting them indexed, and we certainly utilise them on every site we do at work... but you're right, they are of course secondary to a good site structure. I think my comments about meta tags and friendly URLs not being SEO were misunderstood. I've modified them to add the word "alone". A lot of people seem to believe that doing either, or both, of these things is "SEO" checked off their start up check list, which is incorrect. "Digital Marketing", "External SEO", "Off Site Optimisation", it's all naming semantics really. They all fall under the banners of SEO or Search Marketing. Any SEO agency that offers only on-site SEO is not worth even talking to, as they clearly know nothing. Very much appreciate the input though. Thanks! Dan Hi Brandon,

Thanks for the comment. Just to clarify a few things, as I don’t feel most of your items are corrections, more misunderstandings:

Firstly, my apologies for calling you out in particular (I hope you don’t take offence), but from all the work I’ve seen done, there’s no real provable benefit either way, and (IMO), it can only really reinforce the site brand to have it included in the title. Uniqueness is important, but that does not necessarily mean there should be no common elements. I’ve certainly seen a number of big name sites follow this logic, namely BBC News, Google, The Guardian, MSNBC, Twitter, etc.

When I mentioned sitemaps, it was more an option, as opposed to a requirement. I’ve found them to be invaluable on my own sites when first getting them indexed, and we certainly utilise them on every site we do at work… but you’re right, they are of course secondary to a good site structure.

I think my comments about meta tags and friendly URLs not being SEO were misunderstood. I’ve modified them to add the word “alone”. A lot of people seem to believe that doing either, or both, of these things is “SEO” checked off their start up check list, which is incorrect.

“Digital Marketing”, “External SEO”, “Off Site Optimisation”, it’s all naming semantics really. They all fall under the banners of SEO or Search Marketing. Any SEO agency that offers only on-site SEO is not worth even talking to, as they clearly know nothing.

Very much appreciate the input though. Thanks!

Dan

]]> By: Brandon Sheley http://www.dancryer.com/2009/12/ip-board-and-search-engine-optimisation-seo#comment-307 Brandon Sheley Fri, 04 Dec 2009 22:24:11 +0000 http://www.dancryer.com/?p=301#comment-307 Thanks for the article Dan, I agree with everything for the most part. I do have a few edits or suggestions to make as you yourself said, others will try and skew what they think is correct. You mentioned changing your meta tags in not SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, therefor anything you do to your pages to increase visibility to search engines would be classified as SEO. I’m a very strong believer that each page should have 100% unique content, this includes meta info as well. That’s fine if you don’t think this way, but feel free to show me any site that ranks well and has the same meta info on all pages. You also say that a sitemap is needed. This is also false, your site should have a strong internal linking system and don’t need a XML sitemap to be well indexed. The only advantage I see to having an XML sitemap is in googles webmaster tools, being able to track who’s linking to you. Categories are important, but I feel you left out a major tip. You should research the keywords you’re going to use for your categories, us a tool like googles adword keyword tool, it’s tedious but well worth the time invested. You’ll also want to put detailed description for your categories, google and other search engines will pick up on these keyword phrases. As for your “external SEO” that’s called marketing. Ofcourse you should market your site, bookmark it on social bookmarking sites, submit it to link and article directories, get every link possible, even ask your friends to link to you. The more backlinks you have, the higher your rankings will be. I see you are calling me out because I asked how to remove the sitename from the title tag. You do what you want, but I know what’s worked for me in the past, this all goes back to uniqueness on every page. I don’t want the same “sitename” on every indexed page; it looks spammy and unprofessional IMO. Check out all the major bloggers and community owners, you’ll see they’ve removed the sitename from all pages as well. All in all, this is a great post, just a few things I’d like to touch up on, and it would be nice to add the google adwords keyword tool to your list of links. Cheers -Brandon Thanks for the article Dan, I agree with everything for the most part. I do have a few edits or suggestions to make as you yourself said, others will try and skew what they think is correct.
You mentioned changing your meta tags in not SEO. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, therefor anything you do to your pages to increase visibility to search engines would be classified as SEO. I’m a very strong believer that each page should have 100% unique content, this includes meta info as well. That’s fine if you don’t think this way, but feel free to show me any site that ranks well and has the same meta info on all pages.
You also say that a sitemap is needed. This is also false, your site should have a strong internal linking system and don’t need a XML sitemap to be well indexed. The only advantage I see to having an XML sitemap is in googles webmaster tools, being able to track who’s linking to you.
Categories are important, but I feel you left out a major tip. You should research the keywords you’re going to use for your categories, us a tool like googles adword keyword tool, it’s tedious but well worth the time invested. You’ll also want to put detailed description for your categories, google and other search engines will pick up on these keyword phrases.
As for your “external SEO” that’s called marketing. Ofcourse you should market your site, bookmark it on social bookmarking sites, submit it to link and article directories, get every link possible, even ask your friends to link to you. The more backlinks you have, the higher your rankings will be.
I see you are calling me out because I asked how to remove the sitename from the title tag. You do what you want, but I know what’s worked for me in the past, this all goes back to uniqueness on every page. I don’t want the same “sitename” on every indexed page; it looks spammy and unprofessional IMO. Check out all the major bloggers and community owners, you’ll see they’ve removed the sitename from all pages as well.
All in all, this is a great post, just a few things I’d like to touch up on, and it would be nice to add the google adwords keyword tool to your list of links.

Cheers
-Brandon

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