20 replies to this topic

[Baniboy]

I own phpBB3 forums and when I look up spiders/bots in admin control panel, I always notice that google bot is the only one that visits my site, and it visits my forums every day. But when I search in google with my sitename, I find nothing, not even in the last page of results... So am I doing something wrong? I currently have 6 topics on my forums (I just opened it! don't judge too quickly!), 10 posts, 5 users. So, does it help to get some kind of ranking if I link to my site from another site? If yes I'm gonna spam on all other forums by linking to my site, or I could add it to my signature in the forums I'm active in? (don't worry I'll spam only in finnish forums ) does that help? Or doesn't google bot notice links in signatures? Or does that do the excact opposite? instead of my site showing in the results, it first shows all forum topics that I've posted in? Or does this all simply happen because I have not much content in my site?

I know it's a lot of queston marks in one topic... I hope I get some answers.

[TheDisturbedOne]

You really just have to wait and don't give up. It took my site months to get into Google results (MSN was only a matter of days), but once it did, it ranked very high. Link it in your sig in other sites. The more visitors you get, the more likely it is that your site shows up in search results. Maybe you should think of installing a SEO MOD. I have heard that those help, but haven't tried it.

Also remember, your site is very small. If there isn't much to index, it won't get indexed. Make lost of forum posts, and it will increase your chances of showing up in results.

[jlhaslip]

It can take several months to get out of the Google "sandbox" and as suggested, keep promoting your site via Signature links, attract new visitors, and most of all... add unique content. Google will find you and the site will show up eventually.
Another trick would be to add Google Adsense to the Forum pages if possible. Then Google will definitely know about you.

[Spyda]

baniboy, on Apr 11 2009, 05:41 AM, said:

I own phpBB3 forums and when I look up spiders/bots in admin control panel, I always notice that google bot is the only one that visits my site, and it visits my forums every day. But when I search in google with my sitename, I find nothing, not even in the last page of results... So am I doing something wrong? I currently have 6 topics on my forums (I just opened it! don't judge too quickly!), 10 posts, 5 users. So, does it help to get some kind of ranking if I link to my site from another site? If yes I'm gonna spam on all other forums by linking to my site, or I could add it to my signature in the forums I'm active in? (don't worry I'll spam only in finnish forums ) does that help? Or doesn't google bot notice links in signatures? Or does that do the excact opposite? instead of my site showing in the results, it first shows all forum topics that I've posted in? Or does this all simply happen because I have not much content in my site?

I know it's a lot of queston marks in one topic... I hope I get some answers.

Be patient. It takes time to be listed in Google. One thing that could help is google webmaster tools.

https://www.google.com/webmaster/tools

You can submit your sitemap to it, and tell Google how many times it can crawl your site ect. It will really help you increase your SEO ranking. Try it out

[Baniboy]

willielwgg, on Apr 11 2009, 06:06 PM, said:

You really just have to wait and don't give up. It took my site months to get into Google results (MSN was only a matter of days), but once it did, it ranked very high. Link it in your sig in other sites. The more visitors you get, the more likely it is that your site shows up in search results. Maybe you should think of installing a SEO MOD. I have heard that those help, but haven't tried it.

Also remember, your site is very small. If there isn't much to index, it won't get indexed. Make lost of forum posts, and it will increase your chances of showing up in results.

jlhaslip, on Apr 11 2009, 06:33 PM, said:

It can take several months to get out of the Google "sandbox" and as suggested, keep promoting your site via Signature links, attract new visitors, and most of all... add unique content. Google will find you and the site will show up eventually.
Another trick would be to add Google Adsense to the Forum pages if possible. Then Google will definitely know about you.

I will follow your instructions, thanks for the tips. I'll spam all over my forums to get them indexed JK. I always thought that when a google bot visits your site, you'll automatically be added in the results in search... Thanks for the info. I'm trying to install a mod called "Advanced meta tags", but I have some problems undrestanding how to install since I know pretty much nothing about mysql queries. I looked up the guides in phpbb site but it didn't explain exactly how to do the queries.

INSERT INTO phpbb_config (config_name, config_value) VALUES ('description_word_count', 150);
INSERT INTO phpbb_config (config_name, config_value) VALUES ('use_dynamic_description', 1);
INSERT INTO phpbb_config (config_name, config_value) VALUES ('append_keywords_first', 0);
INSERT INTO phpbb_config (config_name, config_value) VALUES ('global_keywords', 'replace, these, keywords, with your own, keywords');
INSERT INTO phpbb_config (config_name, config_value) VALUES ('append_global_keywords', 1);
INSERT INTO phpbb_config (config_name, config_value) VALUES ('keyword_word_count', 50);
INSERT INTO phpbb_config (config_name, config_value) VALUES ('use_dynamic_keywords', 1);

So how do I do this?

Also another "problem" with my is that it's in finnish. So I only have 5.4 million targets or less actually.

How can I make a sitemap? I just put up a page that has links to sections of my website or do I have to do it in some other way?

[TheDisturbedOne]

It may be possible that phpBB has a MOD for a sitemap, but if they don't a quick Google Search of "make sitemap" should get you to what you need. For the other questions...I have no idea. I don't use phpBB, so I don't even know where to start. Best to go on the support boards for that.

[rpgsearcherz]

If Google bot is visiting your forums you should already be listed...If you're not something is wrong. Possibly blacklisted?

Usually my sites are indexed on Google results within 3-4 days, but I also do heavy SEO work on them.

At the end of the day, it's all about your efficiency with SEO'ing your site. PHPBB does have some mods for SEO but they're really not that good.

[TheDisturbedOne]

rpgsearcherz,
I'm not blacklisted from Google, and it took me months to get on results. It just takes some time.

[rpgsearcherz]

It may be because they only do indexing every X days then. I could just be making the sites at around the same time they do re-indexing on their results.

As for the "more visitors" = indexed thing you posted previously.. Not necessarily true...My clan site only has ~60 uniques a month and we were ranked #1 in Google for weeks under very common terms like "Takeover" and "Aion Information."

Your ranking is based on your SEO.

[Baniboy]

Because my site hasn't so many visitors yet, I'll restart it and start using phpBB3 SEO Premod, I'll send an e-mail to all users to register again.

The Premod will have all the SEO stuff installed, I'll just upload the style I want and finnish language pack.

It will have static urls for topics, dynamic meta keywords and descriptions and zero duplicate plus all kinda other SEO stuff, so yea, I'll relaunch!

EDIT: I might have to do some template changes but whatever, I would have to do them even if I would just want to install the mods on my current ones....

EDIT2: The installation went well, but the url rewriting and stuff like that caused me errors, I've disabled the preinstalled SEO mods for now. I'll post in their support forums to find more info about what's the problem.

In the meantime, any more tips about SEOing?

Edited by baniboy, 12 April 2009 - 11:48 AM.