Promoting Threads to Articles w/vbseo - Will it be consider Duplicate pages?

[joeman]

My question is for vBulletin 4.0.6 with VBSEO installed... when I create a new thread in the forum and then promote it to an article which is on the CMS under a section, does Google and other search engines see this as duplicate site content and will this affect anything as far as SEO rank?

Whats the best way about doing a thread to article (or blog) promotion, or do I have nothing to worry about with this while using vbseo?

Any feedback on this is greatly appreciated and one of my biggest concerns right now.

Thanks

[Brian Cummiskey]

vBSEO doesn't redirect anything in this case.... you will have both a forum post and a cms article. It's probably best to move the thread into a private area/etc after promotion so there is only one resource.

The 'promote' feature isn't actually a promotion, but rather it just copies info from the thread into a cms entry screen. There's no good way for the vbseo system to know that a page has been promoted or not.

[toon]

What about if you edit the article, description, title, keywords etc. Even adding a small piece of text to the start introducing the article could change it enough maybe?

[Brian Cummiskey]

If you do this, your're fighting yourself for ranking.

[toon]

You're right, so really the whole promote to article is pretty much flawed. Writing an article is one thing but promoting a forum thread to an article is only worth it when the original is deleted.

[joeman]

Thanks for the response Brian I greatly appreciate the info.

My next question was going to be what toon asked, which would be if you edited the CMS and changed things around like title, shortening it and changing key words would it help at all in not appearing as duplicate content... But I guess you already answered his question in that our pages would still be competing with each other...

So would you suggest to make all topics in the forum separate from the topics in the CMS articles and sections?

It sounds like the "promote to article" function is pretty much useless and not really worth doing if you want the best Search Engine Optimization even with vbseo correct?

Thanks again!

[Brian Cummiskey]

I would suggest that if you promote a thread, to delete or move the thread into a private area, and set up a custom Redirect to the cms entry.

There's only so much we can fix. This is a core vb issue that they need to address.

[joeman]

I would suggest that if you promote a thread, to delete or move the thread into a private area, and set up a custom Redirect to the cms entry.

There's only so much we can fix. This is a core vb issue that they need to address.

Oh ok I understand thanks for your help Brian.

Do you know if it makes any difference if I promote the thread to CMS article and then delete the thread to avoid duplicated content, compared to just creating a brand new article in the CMS by itself without even involving the forum area?

Also for certain topics on a website using CMS and VBSEO do you guys see the CMS as indexing as well as the forum if it has no posts and is just the content (or maybe if it has a couple posts)?

[adom81]

Hello Joe,
There is no way to avoid/prevent duplicated threads if you plan using CMS.
Only one way you can handle it closing comments area on cms to anyone else and doing as Brian said. But that causes breaking community..

Choose one, CMS or Forum threads. I hope vbulletin would find a solution for that if they focus on product not to claims blabla..
I prefer to use it for announcements and news related with my site niche. Not many threads, once a week.

[Mert Gökçeimam]

Actually you are completely wrong.

If you disable promoting threads to articles , there is no way you'll face duplicate items.

[Mattyp]

Here's an idea,
What if we promote the thread to a CMS article so it shows on the front page to our visitors.
Then we disable submission of CMS articles to the sitemap so google doesn't find them, and redirect the CMS article url directly to the thread via htaccess.

redirect 301 /old/old.htm http://www.yourdomain.com/new.htm

[Mert Gökçeimam]

Google will still find the urls on your homepage. The best way to deal with this is disabling Promotion option and creating unique articles

[Mattyp]

Google will still find the urls on your homepage. The best way to deal with this is disabling Promotion option and creating unique articles

How will google find the article if I disable CMS articles in the sitemap generator, and redirect the link to the thread via htaccess?

[Mert Gökçeimam]

Won't you have the article published ? It will be displayed within section and homepage.

And most importantly , what will you do with that article ?

[adom81]

Actually you are completely wrong.

If you disable promoting threads to articles , there is no way you'll face duplicate items.

Creating unique articles has also a thread named "Article: blabla..."
If you hide it for guests, no more trouble however, comments can not viewed by guests. I guess so.

The best way to deal with this is disabling Promotion option and creating unique articles

This is what I talk about, Mert