Hi all,
I have finished writing up MSEO v0.0.3 I just need to finalise the source, check and re-check the system on different installs. I am hoping that I will release it so that it also works on ipb 2.3.x as it is still on ipb 2.2.x.
In this release you will find a sitemap feature to balance the removal of the FURL feature. Why did I remove FURL? well for one there has been a few people e-mailing me that there are some issues with it, and when I tried fixing them something else broke. I just gave up and confessed up to some that the current furl system was not flexible and was not good at all. But no worries it will come back shinning in 1-2 weeks.
But wait! what about dupe content? Well not to worry I covered that 
as IPB has dynamic URL’s I have made the topics page, forum, index and portal page strict on the urls being displayed. And what more it blocks bots from searching other parts of the site that has no real content. Like calendar, login, etc…
This means that it will display only one and unique url per page for topics, forums, index and portal pages. It also works with pagination so there is nothing to worry.
Coming back to the new feature: xml sitemaps. This feature will generate whatever amount of latest links from chosen forums onto XML and also ping 4 major search engines: ask.com, Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Oh and it’s customisable so if you don’t want to ping MSN just uncheck the box and voila! next time the sitemap get generated it will not ping that search engine.
What’s next?
Well next thing after this release is to focus on getting the FURL up and running as well as an acronym generator for topics. And on the side I will start adding a few statistical information gathering tools, add similar topics, Social network links and a ping back/ link back system.
There is also a feature that I may want to add but it could be risky. Well bascially it’s an optimised skin template which is viewable by bots which helps them gather information. But there is still this ethical issue and the search engine terms and condition. It is interesting but costly if the search engines penalise you.
A forum maybe set-up by the next release so that users can ask questions and give feedback.
Hopefully this will then be ready for an actual full release maybe into BETA or a public release.
Keep up the good work my friend.
One of biggest lacking feature of IPB Community is SEO. I believe you will fill that gap with your work since your feature set is promising. Some of IPB users, including me, considering to migrate to Vbulletin just for vbSEO.
I hope your XML sitemap feature works on big forums with 500K post or more.
My thoughts on optimised template: Simply don’t put it since it’s risky and not ethical. You will be able to get effective result if you apply FURL, similar topics, xml sitemaps, preventing duplicate content etc. A hack will not help that much.
For the friendly URL implementation: You could just follow what the guys do for vbSEO. Their structure ise good and should be considered.
Have a nice day.
greatfull.
regarding the xml sitemaps:
At the moment the system is only creating single sheet. But once I get a system running to create multiple sheets effectively I will implement
thanks for the support guys
I agree on the optimised template. Keep up the good work Nitro. Much appreciated!