4 months and no improvement

i just leave mine at 666

I leave my config file at 777 all the time, but I have a dedicated server.

Correction it is at 777 like Keiths

If you are on a shared host it would be better to have permissions reverted to 0644 after saving the options.

Thanks Oleg and all for comments.

This is a great post and a read.

I never consider page weight when doing SEO.

I just look at that individual page in isolation never looking at the bigger picture.

I thought I had come along a long way with my SEO skills but not im going to rethink them all.

O one other thing, So do you recommend disabling the archive on my forums?

Originally Posted by Kalyse

O one other thing, So do you recommend disabling the archive on my forums?

I do

This really has been a great thread, and thanks BamaStangGuy.

So let me ask this. If you are redirecting your Archive/sitemap back to the original content, what would be the harm in still leaving the site map turned on?

Originally Posted by jw00dy

This really has been a great thread, and thanks BamaStangGuy.

So let me ask this. If you are redirecting your Archive/sitemap back to the original content, what would be the harm in still leaving the site map turned on?

Because I don't want to transfer link weight to pages that will never get ranked in search engines.

My archive root page will never out rank my actual Forum Home page. My individual forum archive pages will never outrank my regular forumdisplay pages. So there is no reason to give them link weight. That's about 400-500 (for me) additional pages that link weight is given out too. Another 400-500 pages that Google has to determine the quality off and decide what to do with them.

I am sure it would be fine to leave it but I just don't see the need in having it. Google tries to make you think their bot is brilliant but its really not. It is still a computer looking at pages and then trying to rank them. I just try to make it as easy as possible to find the pages I want to rank and only those pages.

The only thing you are doing is presenting the same data in a different way. So just give Googlebot the page you want them to index only.

Thank you again. This makes perfect sense to me :thumb

You are welcome. Look forward to seeing any progress you make

Originally Posted by BamaStangGuy

Because I don't want to transfer link weight to pages that will never get ranked in search engines.

My archive root page will never out rank my actual Forum Home page. My individual forum archive pages will never outrank my regular forumdisplay pages. So there is no reason to give them link weight. That's about 400-500 (for me) additional pages that link weight is given out too. Another 400-500 pages that Google has to determine the quality off and decide what to do with them.

I am sure it would be fine to leave it but I just don't see the need in having it. Google tries to make you think their bot is brilliant but its really not. It is still a computer looking at pages and then trying to rank them. I just try to make it as easy as possible to find the pages I want to rank and only those pages.

The only thing you are doing is presenting the same data in a different way. So just give Googlebot the page you want them to index only.

You just convinced me to turn mine off too, you make some very good points, cheers!

Dave.

I also turned off my archives some time back after reading one of Bama's post.
It's too soon to report any progress,Lets wait,Watch and hope for the best

Originally Posted by BamaStangGuy

Because I don't want to transfer link weight to pages that will never get ranked in search engines.

My archive root page will never out rank my actual Forum Home page. My individual forum archive pages will never outrank my regular forumdisplay pages. So there is no reason to give them link weight. That's about 400-500 (for me) additional pages that link weight is given out too. Another 400-500 pages that Google has to determine the quality off and decide what to do with them.

I am sure it would be fine to leave it but I just don't see the need in having it. Google tries to make you think their bot is brilliant but its really not. It is still a computer looking at pages and then trying to rank them. I just try to make it as easy as possible to find the pages I want to rank and only those pages.

The only thing you are doing is presenting the same data in a different way. So just give Googlebot the page you want them to index only.

Alright, I'm taking your advice. I've disabled the archive/sitemap on all three of my forums, all of which are running vBulletin and vBSEO.