SEO

After reading this post: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/s...671#post138671 I am going to retain the use of the archive. I will not redirect the archive urls anymore. I will be placing ads on the showthread archive pages and we will see how much my earnings increase.

Granted I know it will take some time to get all those reindexed but I want to try this out.

Anyone else retain the use of their archive and have adsense on it? How does it fair for you?

So this is the changes I am making and sticking with for a good bit to get a good feel for the impact it will have:

1) Return the archive back to its stock form
2) Add rel=nofollow links to showpost pages
3) Add robot entry to deny access to showpost.php
4) Maintain the current URL rewrites.

What I am looking for here is consistency.

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I have adsense on my sitemap pages, but I have the threads redirecting.

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Make any money that way? You mean the Forumdisplay pages that link to the threads right? Those dont get ranked very high and get a lot of traffic. The showthread archive pages would.

Nah, I don't get many views of my sitemap anyway. I just threw the ads up there for the heck of it. They get maybe 10-20 views a day. I would like to just disable the archive completely, but they're indexed in search engines already, so I left it.

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My Personal Sites: My Blog | GPS Discussion Forum

Well as of now Archive has been returned back to normal for Mustangevolution.com and Conflictingviews.com
Rel=nofollow has been added to the showpost pages and they have been removed from my sitemap generator
Robots.txt file includes the following:
and all url rewrites are final

Adsense has been added to the archive pages as well:

http://www.mustangevolution.com/forum/archive/
http://www.conflictingviews.com/forum/archive/

Look forward to seeing some improvements

NO! Please don't do this :(

I'll ask Michael (t2dman) to elaborate more on the topic...

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Juan Muriente / Crawlability Inc.
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I keep getting so many conflicting answers from different people. :(

I just want to pick one thing and stick to it for awhile. Sites like sprintusers.com use the archive and make good money through the archive....

Yes, but they are not using vBSEO - I would elaborate more on the topic now but I want Michael to establish the basics and then, we can discuss further...

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Juan Muriente / Crawlability Inc.
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Thanks for the invitation to discuss.

The Simple truth

The archive version of the threads should not be used. The archive system should be used as a sitemap for the site to get the actual threads to the top. Visually nicer, more inbounds links, the real content.

Others have acknowledged

vBulletin 3.5 now has an option for sitemap links to go straight to the actual threads. They did this at my insistence after hearing my logic.

I have consulted with http://forums.seochat.com/ and they now have the sitemap going straight to the threads.

Many others have seen the logic, made the change and reaped the reward of being as high as possible on Google.

Reasoning

• The archive pages are not well SEO'ed to start with - they need an h1 and intro paragraph to be better seo'ed.
• Your threads should be better onpage SEO'ed so that they can get to the top - see Search Engine Optimize vbulletin 3.5
• The archive pages are duplicate content for the actual threads - Google nicely disregards all the markup, and sees that the content is the same for its 157 odd character snippet around the search phrases.
• The archive pages do not have many links into them, so they dont have as much link popularity as the actual threads. The threads have links from newpost, lastpost, similar threads, next thread, previous thread, forum pages, ... so many links through to them from many pages. The archive versions of the threads only have one link into them.
• Google is about doing the best for users, and with all the time and effort that we go into getting our forum looking good, to have the bland, uninviting archive showing top is crazy logic.
• I want users to have a good experience of my forum, and come back. Long term revenue of people discussing and clicking on ads, not short term gain from clicks on ads that lead them away from the site.
• People are more likely to link to the actual threads where they are discussing the topics, than they are to the archive version.
• You only want ONE copy of a thread, and that to get to the top. Not two copies whereby you dilute the link popularity.
• What can happen is that you possibly have a better onpage seo'ed version with the archive copy, but it has less links into it. Therefore Google can choose that to show as the best page for a search. However, since it has less inbounds, it will show lower than if it had picked your main thread to rank.
• You need an effective sitemap. By adding in another click to get through to the actual thread, you are reducing the effective Google PR by one for that thread, and meaning that Google has to deep crawl that much further to see the real thread.
• You need to get the best Google PR through to the sitemap, therefore I have numbered links into each of the sitemap pages. I dont want the sitemap pages to rank in their own right, hence the numbers. I want the max Google PR to go through to the threads. The numbers also reduce the screen space required for the links.
• The higher the threads get on Google the more traffic, and so the more potential click throughs on ads. I would rather get to the top of Google for a thread, than be 10th for the archive version.

That enough reasons???

Summary

Sites need an effective sitemap, and the archive system provides that, especially when the links go through to the actual threads. I want the best value for my users, and the best branding for me. My actual threads provide all of this, and these are what I want to get to the top. Long term revenue gain from doing things properly.

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T2DMan
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*Hangs head*

Turns back on Archive Forwarding lol

T2DMAN will you please cover some of the things mentioned by DChapman in this thread: http://www.theadminzone.com/forums/s...955#post138955

I am wanting to get these things cleared up and would like to hear your rebuttle.

Brent, what have to decided to go with?

I have turned the archived back into a sitemap with the redirections to the real thread.

A little summary of how I have mine setup:

Showpost pages are NOT included in the sitemap and relnofollow tags are added to them ontop of being restricted via robots.txt

Archive is Rewritten and 301 Redirected to original thread

You may visit Mustangevolution to see how I have my url rewrites setup.

I will be leaving this setup the way it is. Need some consistency in my site to get some good solid stats going and see where my search engine rankings end up at.

I wish google would do this update so their damn stats would stop fluctuating so much

What is the reasoning for blocking access to your posts? I only ask because I have been doing some research lately with some boards and their rankings for various subjects. These posts tend to rank well very often. An example of this would be DigitalPoints multitude of threads and posts that seem to pop of for all kinds of searches that I do.

I set my site up with vbseo in Novermber and let it ride. No changes made at all. I had the archive rewritten and redirected back to the main site.

The only thing I can definately get out of this outcome is less income via adsense, and alot of lost traffic that used to come from the archive. I modified my vbseo settings for the first time today, turning the archive back on and rewriting it with /archive/

Now it is just a matter of putting adsense back in and seeing where it takes me.