27 replies to this topic

[realmaverickuk]

From an SEO indexing perspective, the simple default pagination on IP.Board is pretty bad. Especially for larger boards.

Google deems content less and less important, the deeper in to the website it is. The more clicks it takes to get to a piece of content, the deeper it is classed and thus the more difficult it will be to rank.

By having limited paging options, it takes more clicks to get to older posts, than it would if there were say 1-10 paging.

The bigger the forum, the most of an issue this will be.

I recommend those of you who run big forums, alter your paging to show 1-5 or 1-10 and your forum will be better indexed and traffic will likely increase.

I was hoping this was going to be included in the 3.3 SEO update, but it appears not as IPB is currently running 3.3. Perhaps it's something that could be added before the final release?

I have lots of data to backup my theory if anybody is interested.

Thanks for reading.

[SubStrider]

I recommend those of you who run big forums, alter your paging to show 1-5 or 1-10 and your forum will be better indexed and traffic will likely increase.

I was hoping this was going to be included in the 3.3 SEO update, but it appears not as IPB is currently running 3.3. Perhaps it's something that could be added before the final release?

I have lots of data to backup my theory if anybody is interested.

Interesting observation. Maybe we will put it to use and check, considering we are observing a huge traffic drop after moving to IPB. Anything that takes us closer to VBSEO level is good. How do we alter the pagination to show more pages?

[realmaverickuk]

Hi SubStrider, I'm not sure how to alter it, I'm not a programmer. But I'm pretty sure somebody here will be able to point you in the right direction.

The biggest issue with IPB is definitely the SEO. But it looks like things are going to improve, I just want for the developers to continue to listen and make changes where applicable. Obviously not all modifications will suit everybody, so we won't get everything we want.

However some items, such as this, will improve indexation of all sites using IPB.

[Matt]

I don't disagree but I think having 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 as page links isn't optimal from a normal user's point of view.

[Michael]

I don't disagree but I think having 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 as page links isn't optimal from a normal user's point of view.

People still care about normal users? I thought we all just catered to search engines now.

[Matt]

It's easy to do:

sources/classes/output/publicOutput.php

[media]

Great..

[bfarber]

I have lots of data to backup my theory if anybody is interested.

I would be interested to hear what lead you to this conclusion/observation if you cared to share.

[Kevin Leclair]

It's easy to do: sources/classes/output/publicOutput.php

Is this do-able in version 3.1.4? If so, what file would we modify to accomplish this? Thanks.

[Kevin Leclair]

Nevermind, got it. It was /admin/sources/classes/output/publicOutput.php.

[Axel Wers]

It's easy to do:

sources/classes/output/publicOutput.php

Yeah, good point.

I would recommend set up it to 5 as default, I think it's optimal. 2 is too little in big topics.

[Axel Wers]

Yes and another thing what WILL BE GOOD FOR SEO

By default every page in topic has title by number





in source code I see

<li class='page'><a href="http://forum.domain..../page__st__200" title="9">9</a></li>

Why title is "9" when actually title of 9th page is "Topic Name - Board Name - page 9?"

so in source code should be

<li class='page'><a href="http://forum.domain..../page__st__200" title="Topic Name - Board Name - page 9">9</a></li>

Because actual title of 9th page is Topic Name - Board Name - page 9 not only 9

Currently page with the same content has two titles, it's not very good.

[realmaverickuk]

I don't disagree but I think having 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 as page links isn't optimal from a normal user's point of view.

Google don't care about indexing their own search engine and yet they have 1-10, they invest considerably in to their UI. So I think it's safe to say, 1-10 is optimal for a user.

It's highly unlikely, that having 1-10 will effect a users experience. However it's almost guaranteed that a simple prev and next, will massively impact both indexation and rankings and thus overall traffic to the website.

I guarantee and will be willing to bet any amount of money, that any website moving from VB to IPB, will suffer a traffic loss. This is largely because VB users take advantage of VBSEO and this takes these kinds of SEO aspects in to consideration.

I truly believe this won't harm user experience at all, but will benefit traffic.

[realmaverickuk]

I would be interested to hear what lead you to this conclusion/observation if you cared to share.

Sure, checkout this post from Rand Fishkin over at SEOmoz.org

http://www.seomoz.or...user-experience

It explains things thoroughly. And I really think this is something that should be taken seriously.

Thanks.

[realmaverickuk]

Btw I'd be interested to hear what kind of results you guys get from making the change

[Rimi]

Hello.

In my personal experience seeing 10 page links has been helpful in navigation. I support changing the default to at least five.

[realmaverickuk]

I would go as far as saying the only benefit of basic prev and next is purely aesphetic. It does look more application like.

Also on a mobile skin, prev and next is ideal, because of the smaller screen size.

But on a desktop version of a website, default should be at least 1-5.

One last thing, it maybe easy to change but the default setting should be optimal, as joe blogs won't know the issue even exists and so won't find the solution.

As its such a simple change. I hope to see it in 3.3 final release

[Rimi]

I don't even think next and prev are aesthetic, they make everything more difficult overall for those really really large threads.

For example if I'm browsing through a picture thread and I just want to look at posted pictures and the thread has 200 pages I like being able to click on page 180 and then 172 and then 164 and then 158. Maybe I'm the only person who does this? I just know that as far as page browsing goes I'm much happier clicking than I am opening a dropdown box and typing in a page number. I have done it where I'm on page 30 and want to go to page 80 so I just click my way their 40->50->60->70->80. I think thread browsing is more likely to increase (reducing bounce rates) if you see links to a lot of other pages. It's like when you go on Wikipedia to look up the history of PHP and end up reading about monkeys.

I'm just giving an example. I think the pros outweigh the cons. I suppose ultimately this doesn't matter since the setting is in 3.3 now but I just wanted to share. Those arguing that lots of page links ruin the user experience I just don't agree with.

[bfarber]

Sure, checkout this post from Rand Fishkin over at SEOmoz.org

http://www.seomoz.or...user-experience

It explains things thoroughly. And I really think this is something that should be taken seriously.

Thanks.

Thanks for sharing.

[ehLife.ca]

I guarantee and will be willing to bet any amount of money, that any website moving from VB to IPB, will suffer a traffic loss. This is largely because VB users take advantage of VBSEO and this takes these kinds of SEO aspects in to consideration.

This comment scares the crap out of me. My site is currently VB with VBSEO. I own ip.board now and we're about to make the switch in the upcoming months. I know very little about SEO, but I can't stress enough how important it is to me.

I just mention this as feedback to the powers that be at ip.board... please do all that you can to make SEO optimization awesome.