URL structure, meta tags and canonicals

[Lennart Sauter]

URls are a good improvement. I'd like to see the option for custom meta tags (for index, forums and maybe even for threads) as an override of the default.

Automatic meta descriptions are usually ugly and have a bad ctr in google serps. I'd like to have the option to override them with custom content in certain cases.
But I might be able to plug that in too if it's not put in the core.

[Euan T]

URls are a good improvement. I'd like to see the option for custom meta tags (for index, forums and maybe even for threads) as an override of the default.

Automatic meta descriptions are usually ugly and have a bad ctr in google serps. I'd like to have the option to override them with custom content in certain cases.
But I might be able to plug that in too if it's not put in the core.

I'd personally like to be able to do something similar to what IPB do (or at least used to - no idea if their new version still has it) where you could assign tags for certain pages. I'm not sure of the best way to handle it for threads yet. At the minute we just take the first ~250 characters from the first post of a thread and use that. It's not exactly a great solution, but I guess it's better than nothing for now.

[Lennart Sauter]

It's better than nothing for sure but if a thread ranks well in Google and you want to improve the CTR even further you'll not be able to do so without a custom meta description.

[bocian1994]

More people use IPBoard becouse it's better then MyBB for SEO.
If you concentrate on seo Mybb will be the best script for forums.

The more features for SEO the better for MyBB.

Think about it.

////

And i have a question.

Topic: /topic/9/me-thread
User profile: /user/1/admin
Forum: /forum/1/my-category

It's the best for seo?

[Euan T]

URLs don't particularly matter for SEO, they're more beneficial fr human users than bots.

[Lennart Sauter]

URLs don't particularly matter for SEO, they're more beneficial fr human users than bots.

I'd say that's controversial: http://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors

[Euan T]

URLs don't particularly matter for SEO, they're more beneficial fr human users than bots.

I'd say that's controversial: http://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors

Interesting, though I do notice that page has little evidence for the "keyword in URL" topic.

All the evidence that I've read over the years has greatly downplayed the impact of URLs on search results (eg: https://www.quicksprout.com/2015/04/06/d...en-answer/). I believed that Google value content and back links over almost everything else. As long as your URLs are at least related to the topic (eg: no URL like "/posts1359867316438.html" on a post that talks about a new software release or something), I've always believed they'll be favorable enough to Google (which our new scheme should be in most cases).

With other things that we're doing (such as using meta tags, using structured data, possibly including social graph data, etc) we should be pretty solid for SEO. Of course, we'll have to continuously tweak things as Google change their minds about what ranks better.

[laie_techie]

Something like the "Thread Description" plugins should be made core in MyBB 2.0; the first 250 characters or so is what is shown by default by most bots in search results.

[Euan T]

That is already implemented, as explained in the first post...

[laie_techie]

Something like the "Thread Description" plugins should be made core in MyBB 2.0; the first 250 characters or so is what is shown by default by most bots in search results.

That is already implemented, as explained in the first post...

Reading this thread, it sounds like the meta description tag will be populated by the first x characters. I was simply stating that allowing the thread creator to specify a description (which could be edited by mods / admin) would be better. Maybe my suggestion would be an enhancement for a later release.