Make category and forum headings for your board

[dutchbb]

Well pretty simple and effective way to give more structure to your forums, adding heading tags is known to help get your pages ranked better and more effective. I for one have experienced a better ranking for my 2 websites after adding these. Ideal I think, is making your logo H1 like on this board, with the best keyword for your site and using H2 for your navbar and categories/forums. Optional H3 for subforums. Example: fitness and bodybuilding chat

Important: add this CSS to your styles first!

.h2forum {
font: bold 1em verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
margin: 0;
display: inline;
}

Change the font size or use px whatever you like.


In forumhome_forumbit_level1_nopost
****************************

FIND:

PHP Code:

<a href="forumdisplay.php?$session[sessionurl]f=$forum[forumid]">$forum[title]</a> 


REPLACE WITH:

PHP Code:

<h2 class="h2forum"><a href="forumdisplay.php?$session[sessionurl]f=$forum[forumid]">$forum[title]</a></h2> 


In forumhome_forumbit_level1_post
****************************

FIND:

PHP Code:

<a href="forumdisplay.php?$session[sessionurl]f=$forum[forumid]"><strong>$forum[title]</strong></a> 


REPLACE WITH:

PHP Code:

<h2 class="h2forum"><a href="forumdisplay.php?$session[sessionurl]f=$forum[forumid]">$forum[title]</a></h2> 


Now do the same thing for level 2 but add a &nbsp; after <if condition="$show['browsers']">

Done!

[Mike]

What is going into that heading when you click on threads?

I can tell when you click on a forum that the forum description goes in there.

I cant tell what is getting placed in there when you click on a thread though.

vBulletin has a stock setting that puts the forum title and description throughout all the threads, similar to this, but not sure if it is using h2 or not.

[Michael]

Originally Posted by sportsoutlaw

What is going into that heading when you click on threads?

I can tell when you click on a forum that the forum description goes in there.

I cant tell what is getting placed in there when you click on a thread though.

vBulletin has a stock setting that puts the forum title and description throughout all the threads, similar to this, but not sure if it is using h2 or not.

I believe the only difference is the fact that a <h2> tag has been applied to individual forum titles for SEO purposes. The destination URL appears the same and there isnt any additional definitions with the <a> tag such as a title attribute either so i believe just adding in a customized, more visually appealing H2 tag.

[Mike]

If you are unable to create an h1 tag in your logo, would it be ok to make this "h1" ?

[dutchbb]

h1 is more important than h2, so if you have a board about basketball I would place that word in h1 and place a section like 'events' in h2, a subsection events > '2006' could go in <h3> and so on...

Personally I don't like the H1 used too mutch, it's for main topic(s) on a page and should be used that way.

[Mike]

Yes, but the way it stands right now, I dont have an h1 at all on my forum

[dutchbb]

You can place the vbulletin categories in h1, and the forums in h2

cats are forumhome_forumbit_level1_nopost and forums are forumhome_forumbit_level1_post

the same for level 2

[Mike]

Ok, I added this, and nothing changed

Where did you add the CSS? in the first or second box?

[dutchbb]

Second, doesn't matter though as long it's there

[eJM]

Dutch, I hope you're still around. I think this can be a little simpler.

Your code:

.h2forum {
font: bold 13px verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; 
margin: 0;
display: inline;
}

Can be reduced to:

h2 {
font: bold 13px verdana, arial, sans-serif; 
margin: 0;
display: inline;
}

Any <h2></h2> will be affected by this, so there is no need to add the class= to your markup. Of course, if you use different settings throughout your site for the <h2>, you may want to keep it the way you had it, but the <h2> should be consistent throughout your site, as should all the headings. I also removed the font helvetica. There isn't a computer around that won't have either the verdana or arial font and if there is, then any sans-serif will suffice. It saves space.

Now you can put a <h2></h2> anywhere and not have to mark it up. Do the same in decreased font sizes for <h3> and <h4> and do one in a larger font for <h1> You may find a situation that calls for a <h4> in a smallcaps font or something. You never know.

[dutchbb]

Yeah but I have other H2's that need to be bigger, like the topic title, I use H1 in my logo