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Oct
06
2008
Discussion of SEO for Fireboard Forums
Written by Steve Burge   
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Fireboard ForumsI hope this will be the first of a series of open discussions focusing on popular Joomla extensions.


A very smart SEO Club member ( Suchmaschinenoptimierung Joomla ) helped me brainstorm a list of things to be aware of when optimizing a site with Fireboard. I'm going to give those here and then turn if over to you guys for any other tips, tricks or problems that you have.

1) Using 'RE:' for All Replies

This is an example of one page with two URLs, a clear duplicate content problem:


  • forums/general/form-search-not-working
  • forums/general/re-form-search-not-working

Solution: go to administrator / components / com_fireboard / and on line 1306 change DEFINE('_POST_RE', 'Re:'); to DEFINE('_POST_RE', '');

2) Posts Having Same Name

If you have two posts both titled "Welcome", you'll one be able to see one.

Solution: Avoid Artio and SEF Advanced. Use sh404SEF and chose to insert the post ID number in the URL.

3) Spam Problems

    After creating search result pages to index, Google is now indexing potential Fireboard replies, complete with a quote from a previous poster. Just click "Submit" and you're done. This is a spammers delight.


    Solution: Turn off public posting on Fireboard.

    4) Site Map

    It's useful to get your forum posts included in a sitemap:

    Solution: Use SEF Service Map with the Fireboard plugin. This should work for 1.0 and 1.5. 

    5) Known Bugs

    1. Pagination. Often breaks inside posts and inside categories.
    2. Rather than using anchors, the post ID number is inserted by modules and the search form:
      • Original post: http://www.rsjoomla.com/index.php/RSform-Showcase/310-Form-using-css.html
      • Reply: http://www.rsjoomla.com/index.php/RSform-Showcase/4605-ReForm-using-css.html (two problems for the price of one here)
      • How URL should be: http://www.rsjoomla.com/index.php/RSform-Showcase/310-Form-using-css.html#4605
    3. Pagination divides posts into seperate folders. Ideally they would all appear on the same folder level:
      • forum/10-computer-explodes.html
      • forum/10-computer-explodes/page-2.html
     

    Read more articles by this author:

    Comments  

     
    #1 Pete 2008-10-07 03:03
    Point 4:

    Steve, do you think this trick from Mathias would to the Job as fine as the mentioned extension?
    http://blog.joomlatools.org/2008/09/super-secret-sitemap-trick.html

    Cheers

    Pete
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    #2 pippo morba 2008-10-07 05:44
    Hi, Fireboard RC2 has been released, do you think it will solve the known bugs you have listed in the article?
    http://www.bestofjoomla.com/component/option,com_fireboard/Itemid,38/func,view/id,59739/catid,78/limit,10/limitstart,0/
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    #3 Tom Thorns 2008-10-07 07:53
    I've got loads of duplicate content issues on my main site due to the replies on the forum having their unique id number inserted. I'm thinking the best course of action will be to just switch to phpbb using the rokbridge once I pluck up the courage to migrate over to J1.5!

    Tom.
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    #4 Steve Burge 2008-10-07 13:53
    Hi Tom - What kind of DC issues are you finding?

    Hi Pippo - I think pagination is the only one of these issues they're looking at for 1.0.5RC2.
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    #5 Daniel Wolff 2008-10-07 16:30
    Hi There,

    is missing the file name at tip #1:

    Solution: go to administrator / components / com_fireboard / and on line 1306 change DEFINE('_POST_RE', 'Re:'); to DEFINE('_POST_RE', '');
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    #6 Daniel Wolff 2008-10-07 16:57
    tip # 4) Site Map:

    I didn't find the SEF Service Map for J! 1.5. I'm using xMap:

    http://joomla.vargas.co.cr/downloads/cat_view/1-xmap

    and here goes the FB Xmap plug-in:

    http://joomla.vargas.co.cr/forum?view=topic&f=4&t=706&sid=6822e0bf43803187d8b64ede4583cf56
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    #7 Steve Burge 2008-10-07 17:38
    Thanks Dasmonstrum - fixed the code ommission and I'll add Xmap too.
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    #8 pippo morba 2008-10-08 04:02
    Steve, file name in your
    "go to administrator / components / com_fireboard / and on line 1306 "
    is still missing!
    and FireboardRC2 has already been released 2 days ago, they are looking for 1.0.5 now...
    Dasmonstrum, SEF service map 104 is compatible with 1.5 with legacy
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    #9 Tom Thorns 2008-10-08 04:21
    Hi Steve,

    In Google Webmaster Tools I've got nearly 100 instances of duplicate title tags, in total there are over 300 individual urls involved - every single one of them is a forum post that has one or more replies, where each reply is given a unique url based on it's id number. Leaving the id out of the urls isn't an option for me as there are already posts with the same title! I just hope Google is clever enough to realise what is going on and recognise that it's only a forum!

    Tom.
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    #10 Johan Janssens 2008-10-09 00:46
    @Steve : Let's please correctly inform people about duplicate content, Google has once more put information out that this issue is alot less severe as people are thinking. More info : http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/09/demystifying-duplicate-content-penalty.html

    @Tom : You don't need to worry about duplicate content issues on your blog. Google does an excellent job recognizing the multiple URL's, what is most important in your case is descriptive page titles.

    Cheers,

    Johan
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