GT-NextGen Implementation - Feedback and Input Needed!

Guardian2003 · Site Admin Joined: Aug 28, 2003 Posts: 4868

No I was having a serupticious dig in montego's direction as he still hasnt uploaded his sitemap I spent quite a time making for him - hence the cough Wink

Raven · Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2006 10:33 am

Turn your head next time killing me

Guardian2003 · Site Admin Joined: Aug 28, 2003 Posts: 4868

Don't make me laugh, it plays havoc with my hemaroids.

Steptoe · Involved Joined: Oct 09, 2004 Posts: 288

The above points are very vailid...when I 1st GTed these where not done (and no Google site map at that time) Google was not going thru our site very well.
Susan helped me out with yhis in a past post here. Once these where changed in the nuke files (forget which now) Google started to rip thru the site big time, and so did MSN.
I do not know what the result would have been if I had done the google site map and left the links as they where.

sak · Regular Joined: Jul 06, 2005 Posts: 84

OK, I can't keep myself. I need to post, even though I really don't have any experience with GT. I've been chomping at the bit lately to tap my own site. I'm still trying to build up the courage Wink

Here's what I've gathered from this thread: Mod-rewrite does seem to help search results considerably (whether or not it *should*, it still does). Google sitemaps help even more. Would it also be worthwhile looking into tying nukeSEO in with a google-type deal? The generation of sitemaps and google sitemaps alone is a great feature. Perhaps rewrite (and other GT features) could be added into nukeSEO to create a really nice package for everyone. It could be a combined effort with raven and the others here, to also be used in RavenNuke.

Well I'm just tossing ideas out. I'm seriously drooling about doing this to my site. Maybe I'll have some real input after I work with it.

montego · Posted: Wed Feb 22, 2006 6:42 am

If I had to summarize the discussion so far, I believe the "order of importance" of these concepts seems to be something like this:

1) Content, content, content (useful, valid, not too repetitive, changing) - note that this includes good compliant pages, no dead pages, "good" links (i.e., with titles)...

2) Good, descriptive META tags (would even be better if they could be dynamic per page -- the best -- or at least by module)

3) Sitemaps (both a crawlable one on the site itself and using a Google Sitemap)

4) Dynamic Titles

5) Shortened URLs (we're still not 100% sure, but many of us like them anyways)

At least this is what I learned from this thread as well as others...

Steptoe · Involved Joined: Oct 09, 2004 Posts: 288

I would throw meta tag (meta.php) in as 2nd or 3rd...I know its generally accepted that these are not used bery much ny SE these days. My knocking our site up and down rabkings did show these are very significant...maybe in setup instructionas include instructions to edit this file
Dead pages I would rank 3 or 4.
Not mentioned ..alt tags also 2 or 3
And another Im playing with at the moment, length time domain name has to go before regist expires....so far this seems to drop a site 3 to 5 ranks at above the 3 month threshold...not realy significant

Guardian2003 · Site Admin Joined: Aug 28, 2003 Posts: 4868

I would agree with monetgo's assessment.
One has to keep in mind that to make the best of SEO it requires a combination of things, rather like a recipe.
If you make a cake and leave out the sugar, you still end up with a cake but it could be better.
Obviously there are some essential ingredients (content) without which you have no cake at all.

recep · Hangin' Around Joined: Dec 11, 2005 Posts: 44

l extreamly agree with CurtisH, as some of you know l made a very simple web site about php and its turkish articles, l put php manuel book nuke manuel and pear manuel in nuke and installed GT-NextGen , also l didnt missed to add some of the search engines by trial search engine submitter softwarez,
you see know what ? this simple web site having more than 10 member every day and 1000 single visits and more than 4000 pagewiews everyday, as l see from some of the seo tools, some of the pages got 3 or 4 google page rank from google.
l am sure as l read from most of the seo's articles Shorten url's are very important for crawlers..
l loved GT-NextGen and cant think phpnuke without it

Nash · Regular Joined: Jan 10, 2006 Posts: 86

When do you expect to implement this?

guidyy · Worker Joined: Nov 22, 2004 Posts: 206 Location: Italy

The main problem with GT (all flavours) is in the forums.
not a mod-rewrite fault itself, it's just how the forum works.
From the point of view of a crawler it's not friendly at all

Example:
This post is correcly rewritten into : postt8045.html
if you click on "view next topic" it will say postt8045-view-next.html
while it should be: postt8440.html

Now, postt8045-view-next.html, postt8440.html and postt8440-view-previous.html point to the same page and can cause duplicate content penalty by search engines.
I got rid of "view next" and "view previos" from my forums to avoid this, but it's just a brute force solution.

So far i didnt find any good solution
Any idea?
Guido

Raven · Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 10:18 am

guidyy, interesting. I never thought about it that way (SEO related)

CurtisH · Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 11:21 am

I am using GT-NextGen (most current) and do not have this issue that you speak of.

guidyy · Worker Joined: Nov 22, 2004 Posts: 206 Location: Italy

you do!

from your website:

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doesn't these urls point to same page?
Wink

CurtisH · Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 11:56 am

I must be misunderstanding you, when I click the "view next" or "view previous "links they do just as they are supposed to, the links point to the next or previous post, they do not point to the same post where I am clicking the link. Am I misunderstanding you?

CurtisH · Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:04 pm

It just became clear. I now see your point. *LOL*

guidyy · Worker Joined: Nov 22, 2004 Posts: 206 Location: Italy

LOL, Ok!

yes, it can be confusing.
What i'm trying to tell ( and this go for everybody who read this):

the php2bb next/previous feature, along with some other functions mod-rewrited or not is not SEO friendly at all. In both cases it will lead to three different urls for the same page.
That's not really something i'd like to have on my website..

Guido

Susann · Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 12:36 pm

There is a interesting mod for this problem.

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Steptoe · Involved Joined: Oct 09, 2004 Posts: 288

Quote:

Now, postt8045-view-next.html, postt8440.html and postt8440-view-previous.html point to the same page and can cause duplicate content penalty by search engines.

Quote:

I got rid of "view next" and "view previos" from my forums to avoid this, but it's just a brute force solution.

GT is not the complete sol'n As mentioned above SEO is a combination of several functions.
To stop SE is done 2 ways
1/Google site map and also remove add, order, rate, popular, user detail account. type links
2/make these only appear when logged on
It is not just forums..gallery, downloads, links, news, modules.

Further notes

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guidyy · Worker Joined: Nov 22, 2004 Posts: 206 Location: Italy

I have Google sitemap (and this helps with google but not with other SE)
I also untapped all those functions (order rate account profile etc etc)
and disallowed crawlers for \modules.php in the robots.txt.
That keeps the good robots out of the non mod-rewritten links

Guido

guidyy · Worker Joined: Nov 22, 2004 Posts: 206 Location: Italy

....going back IN Topic.

I think it would be great if possible to have a GT-mainfile.php
with all the code you need to put in the mainfile.php, and in mainfile.php just an include("GT mainfile.php") (also for header and footer)
so you do not have to deal with mainfile.php every upgrade/update
Sorry if I'm telling crap, but I'm far to be a programmer!
Guido

Raven · Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 2:43 pm

guidyy wrote:

....going back IN Topic.

I think it would be great if possible to have a GT-mainfile.php
with all the code you need to put in the mainfile.php, and in mainfile.php just an include("GT mainfile.php") (also for header and footer)
so you do not have to deal with mainfile.php every upgrade/update
Sorry if I'm telling crap, but I'm far to be a programmer!
Guido

Is this not, in essence, what the original GT is/was (I still use it). Except, instead of the code in mainfile, it's all kept in header.php. Is that what you are advocating or have I missed it completely Laughing

?

montego · Posted: Mon Feb 27, 2006 7:03 pm

guidyy,

Wow! Never thought of the previous/next, but I see your point. I like the idea of making these visible only upon being logged in. However, I am wondering how many duplicates you have to have to be considered "bad". There has to be some reasonable number as this can happen from blocks that are common across pages, a sitemap, etc. too. So, I really wonder if this is an issue for the forums. It just seems to me that this may not be as much of an issue as you may think (I don't have any basis for that comment, just thinking out loud).

Raven, I personally did not like the header.php approach as I would have to keep modifying the header.php file every time I needed a new "tap". I also like having the separate GoogleTap directory very neat and organized and no series of IF statements or case statement (cannot remember which) to execute through. However, I do also see guidyy's point. The most important thing in my opinion is getting the nuke page buffered and then at the end end doing the search/replace. Maybe there is a way we can shorten up the mainfile.php changes to be very minimal so that the merging becomes one or two lines rather than 20 - 30 lines.

Just a thought.

guidyy · Worker Joined: Nov 22, 2004 Posts: 206 Location: Italy

Raven,
I have GT NextGeneration v. 0.4a by Audioslave:
some GT code goes into mainfile, some goes into header.php, some into footer.php
and you also have a folder called GoogleTap where you put a file for each module you want to tap called GT-Modulename.php, containig the input/output array...

edited:
opps i misssed a part:
i was thinking something about this in mainfile.php

if GT-mainfile exist, then include ("GT-mainfile.php")
if not.. forget it and go on...

This would leave mainfile.php alone with no need to edit everytime you upgrade/update and keep all GT stuff into the GT folder.

Montego,
I know people loosing pagerank for having

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Most likely you will not get banned, but your pagerank may be affected.

Guido

guidyy · Worker Joined: Nov 22, 2004 Posts: 206 Location: Italy

Susann wrote:

There is a interesting mod for this problem.

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Susan,
thank you!
This solve the problem of next / previous

I have some problem with german language, but i sorted it out! Smile

Guido