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IP.SEO is a free extra from IPS which provides tools to enhance the Search Engine Optimization of your community. It includes features like sitemap generation, the ability to set meta tags on any page, search engine statistics and SEO-related advice on your configuration. The IPS Community Suite itself has many built-in SEO features that are suitable for nearly all communities however IP.SEO expands upon them with more advanced SEO features.
We've been busy working on an update to IP.SEO which will be available soon. New features include:
Live Meta Tag Editor
IP.SEO has long had the ability to add custom meta tags to any page within your community, allowing you to modify the title, add a meta description and more on an individual-page basis.
While working on IP.SEO 1.5, we looked into ways we could make this important tool more accessible, and have taken concepts we learned from the Visual Skin Editor in IP.Board 3.2 and applied them to this.
Much like how with the Visual Skin Editor you can modify the skin live on the front-end, the Live Meta Tag Editor allows you to browse the front-end of your community and view and edit the meta tags configured for each page you visit. This allows you to customise the meta information on every page in your community easier than ever before so you can make sure all of your pages have exactly the right information you want to show search engines.
Improved Sitemap
In IP.SEO 1.5, we've added support for IP.Calendar, IP.Nexus and IP.Chat to the sitemap, so now all IPS applications are supported and your entire community can be accessed by site maps easily.
But not only that, we've also added some new settings for forums. You can now exclude a forum from the sitemap, or even set a priority level for forums on an individual basis. This allows you to rate your important content such as focussed user discussions higher than for example, site-related announcements or off-topic discussion.
Acronym Expansion
Users on a community will often post acronyms or abbreviations about the topic of your community, which can cause those posts to be missing the important keywords your community targets.
For example, we often have users post "IPB" as an abbreviation for "IP.Board". Search engines of course, don't know these are one in the same and when someone searches "IP.Board", posts that say "IPB" won't match. This can be a problem.
In IP.SEO 1.5, we've added a feature we call Acronym Expansion, which will automatically either replace an acronym with the specified long version, or wrap an acronym in a HTML <acronym> tag so that search engines know what the user means.
This allows you to ensure that even user-generated content includes the important keywords your community targets.
Miscellaneous Enhancements
We've also of course included many miscellaneous enhancements. For example, in IP.SEO 1.5 it will be easier to get started with automatic sitemap.xml generation and a tool to download a blank sitemap.xml file if one cannot be generated automatically.
In addition, in an effort to improve the SEO within all of our base products, the next releases of IP.Board and IP.Content have had some links removed when viewing the community as a guest which are inaccessible to spiders like the "Like" button.
Beta Available Now
If you are comfortable testing beta software, IP.SEO 1.5 is now available for beta testing in our pre-release forum.
As always if you have any suggestions for future versions of IP.SEO, please post them to our feedback forum. If you're not already using IP.SEO, make sure you download this free extra now!
We've been busy working on an update to IP.SEO which will be available soon. New features include:
Live Meta Tag Editor
IP.SEO has long had the ability to add custom meta tags to any page within your community, allowing you to modify the title, add a meta description and more on an individual-page basis.
While working on IP.SEO 1.5, we looked into ways we could make this important tool more accessible, and have taken concepts we learned from the Visual Skin Editor in IP.Board 3.2 and applied them to this.
Much like how with the Visual Skin Editor you can modify the skin live on the front-end, the Live Meta Tag Editor allows you to browse the front-end of your community and view and edit the meta tags configured for each page you visit. This allows you to customise the meta information on every page in your community easier than ever before so you can make sure all of your pages have exactly the right information you want to show search engines.
Improved Sitemap
In IP.SEO 1.5, we've added support for IP.Calendar, IP.Nexus and IP.Chat to the sitemap, so now all IPS applications are supported and your entire community can be accessed by site maps easily.
But not only that, we've also added some new settings for forums. You can now exclude a forum from the sitemap, or even set a priority level for forums on an individual basis. This allows you to rate your important content such as focussed user discussions higher than for example, site-related announcements or off-topic discussion.
Acronym Expansion
Users on a community will often post acronyms or abbreviations about the topic of your community, which can cause those posts to be missing the important keywords your community targets.
For example, we often have users post "IPB" as an abbreviation for "IP.Board". Search engines of course, don't know these are one in the same and when someone searches "IP.Board", posts that say "IPB" won't match. This can be a problem.
In IP.SEO 1.5, we've added a feature we call Acronym Expansion, which will automatically either replace an acronym with the specified long version, or wrap an acronym in a HTML <acronym> tag so that search engines know what the user means.
This allows you to ensure that even user-generated content includes the important keywords your community targets.
Miscellaneous Enhancements
We've also of course included many miscellaneous enhancements. For example, in IP.SEO 1.5 it will be easier to get started with automatic sitemap.xml generation and a tool to download a blank sitemap.xml file if one cannot be generated automatically.
In addition, in an effort to improve the SEO within all of our base products, the next releases of IP.Board and IP.Content have had some links removed when viewing the community as a guest which are inaccessible to spiders like the "Like" button.
Beta Available Now
If you are comfortable testing beta software, IP.SEO 1.5 is now available for beta testing in our pre-release forum.
As always if you have any suggestions for future versions of IP.SEO, please post them to our feedback forum. If you're not already using IP.SEO, make sure you download this free extra now!
going testing
I know if I posted it here I would see "This is not the feedback forum"... *sigh*
