Webmastertalk.co.uk - progress

Webmaster Forum - UK Webmaster Talk - Online Marketing - SEO was like a sick puppy when I acquired it a few days ago

Judging by what I can see on archive.org it had a good rank a few years ago, but the site had a lot of issues with spam and general rubbish being posted

I upgraded VB to the latest version, installed vbseo and the vbseo sitemap addon and the conditional signature mod.

The first couple of days Google practically ignored it, but within 48 hours the level of GoogleBot activity had gone up quite a bit

I'll try and keep you posted on how I get on

Fantastic. I can't wait for you to start telling us how much your long tail is growing:
Measuring Your Long Tail - vBulletin SEO Forums

Joe
It's early days yet. I'm trying to get the inactive users back and encourage new members to join.

The domain itself is keyword rich, but the last owner had it on a rather nasty hosting account with a tiny bandwidth allowance, so the site was offline for the last week of August!

I've since moved it to one of my servers in London to maximise on the SEO value ie. co.uk on UK ip space for better geotargetting

Michele

Sounds like your off to a good start. It's amazing how a plant can spring back to life with a little water and fertilizer. Forums work the same way.

Well if you have any suggestions let me know

Make sure you check out these resources:
Your Site Review - Stuff to Do First

Briansol's Ultimate Guide to vBSEO

Thanks - I was looking at them already

I did a short write up on the progress to date:
Rebuilding A Damaged Community Progress Report - Michele Neylon :: Pensieri

The most interesting thing is the drastic and dramatic change in GoogleBot activity:
http://www.mneylon.com/blog/images/googlebot-activity-chart.png

Hello Michele ,

If i were you i would disable Members who visited forum today only to members as you donot want to have too many links on one page.
You should also turn your welcome header into an image [HOW-TO] Make your Welcome Headers an image!

Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam

Hello Michele ,

If i were you i would disable Members who visited forum today only to members as you donot want to have too many links on one page.

Ok - I presume I can tweak that setting

Originally Posted by Mert Gökçeimam

You should also turn your welcome header into an image [HOW-TO] Make your Welcome Headers an image!

Doesn't that raise accessibility issues with blind users etc?

Originally Posted by blacknight

Doesn't that raise accessibility issues with blind users etc?

Using an ALT tag that includes the equivalent text of the welcome message will allow the message to be heard by blind visitors.

There is something visually appealing about Web Hosting Talk - The largest, most influential web hosting community on the Internet (I feel like I want to see what the forums are about) but with yours my eyes are just not adjusting (It just isnt getting me in)

I suppose first impressions last, and I only lasted about 10 seconds on your site. Sorry.

I would get a new design/layout which is both visually appealing while being seo beneficial.

Good luck.