norcalmotocross.com

Give it a look and let me know what you think.

I have been looking over the forums here and making some updates. I am looking at replacing photopost classifieds to vbclassifieds hoping for some better integration. I may get rid of Where to Ride which is Reviewpost and just make a Forum with sub forums for each place to ride.

I have spent some time making sure it works size wise for the majority of my users. 60% are 1024 or larger.

I need to work on the header logo next you get large black areas on each side of the logo if you have a high resolution.

Any thoughts bring them on and dont be afraid to be harsh

Hi Joey,

Here are a few ideas for you:

• I actually like your header image. The images are great. You might want to ask a pro to help you with it, but I would expect they would probably do minor revisions to what you have already.
• I think that your template could use some work. The same header applied within the vBSEO 1.0 or 2.0 template would probably look great.
• I'm not crazy about your homepage since it just has links to recent threads and then some of the other RSS stuff pulled in at the bottom.
• Your "Featured Ads" block at the top is empty right now. Unless there is an active ad, I would remove it.
• I would get rid of your forum stats at the top, by applying a conditional to remove them for guests.
• Your site is one of the few in which I would KEEP the calendar link, because you actually use it to keep track of event dates.
• Since the forum stats are at the top of every page, they definitely need to be removed for guests.
• Since you are using vBSEO 3.3.0 RC1, I would use the new HTML Virtual Display feature on your "What's Going On?" section.
• I would love to see the module for "Upcoming Events for the Next 7 Day(s)" moved up near the top in the left or right column since this is important info.
• The welcome message you are using is good since you have customized it and related it to your forum.
• Your sub-forum descriptions are good. There is always room for improvement. You can occasionally scan through them to find opportunities to get niche keywords into those descriptions. Very current events, names, new brands, news occurences, etc, can sometimes be placed into those descriptions. It can help encourage people to post in the forum as well as some additional keyword coverage for the search engines.
• I don't like your setup for Relevant Replacments on your sub-forum pages. The problem is that you are using both a H1 and H2 which is OK, but the title that is wrapped in the H1 is identical to the H2. They should be different.
• You might want to convert your main tabs including "MDK Dealerships", etc, from an image to a text version instead.
• The way you are using the H1 and H2 on your thread pages is actually very interesting, and may be quite effective for you. I like this setup. I would love to hear about what kind of results you get with it.
• You should remove your forum title from the TITLE part of your thread pages, so that you can help improve your long tail search optimization.

Thanks for the feedback, i have a few questions if you dont mind.

I think that your template could use some work. The same header applied within the vBSEO 1.0 or 2.0 template would probably look great.

Is it a technical issue or is it just look and feel?

Your "Featured Ads" block at the top is empty right now. Unless there is an active ad, I would remove it.

I upgraded my classifieds yesterday and for some reason it broke. Im looking into that right now. But you are right the homepage sucks. Even with the classifieds. Maybe I should forget having a homepage and make the forum the landing page.

I would get rid of your forum stats at the top, by applying a conditional to remove them for guests.

Do you have an example of how I would do that, I am still learning php

Since you are using vBSEO 3.3.0 RC1, I would use the new HTML Virtual Display feature on your "What's Going On?" section.

I have this featured turned on, do I have to make a template edit or something else to get it to work properly

I don't like your setup for Relevant Replacments on your sub-forum pages. The problem is that you are using both a H1 and H2 which is OK, but the title that is wrapped in the H1 is identical to the H2. They should be different.

I agree, I struggled with that for days and for the life of me I just cant figure out a better way. I tried making the H1 tag the image, but could never get that working and I want to make sure I have both the H1 and H2 setup on all the pages. I am open to any suggestions.

You should remove your forum title from the TITLE part of your thread pages, so that you can help improve your long tail search optimization.

Could you explain that in a little more detail.

I got conditionals working , thanks to this

http://www.vbseo.com/f28/your-guide-...mplates-31065/

I removed the Title from the pages with this thread

Template SEO - vBulletin Template Search Engine Optimization

Re: Template suggestion

Mostly look and feel. However, the vBSEO 1.0 and 2.0 templates are designed to be more light weight, which also has its advantages for SEO.

Re: Forum as a landing page

If you don't have a lot of content for the homepage, then using the forum as the homepage is a reasonable option.

Re: Removing forum stats

You can wrap them in the same template conditionals you figured out using the article you posted.

Re: HTML Virtual Display

Yes, other than for notices, this requires template editing to apply to your other sections. Please check out:
Virtual HTML Display - What is it?


Re: H1 and H2

I've seen some sites using the site title as the H1 on every page and the thread title as the H2 which is reasonable.

Re: Remove Forum Title from Thread Pages

Check out:
[How To] Remove Forum Title from Thread Pages for Long Tail Optimization / Increased Thread Title Relevancy

So I found this in my FORUMHOME template

Code:

 <tr>
  <td class="tcat" colspan="2">$vbphrase[whats_going_on]</td>
 </tr>

And the link you pointed me to suggests

Code:

<!--VBSEO_VIRTUAL_HTML-->
your text here
<!--/VBSEO_VIRTUAL_HTML-->

So would I do this?

Code:

<!--VBSEO_VIRTUAL_HTML-->
<tr>
  <td class="tcat" colspan="2">$vbphrase[whats_going_on]</td>
 </tr>
<!--/VBSEO_VIRTUAL_HTML-->

Hello Joey ,

If you want to wrap your whats going on template , you must wrap the whole part of it.

HTML Code:

<!--VBSEO_VIRTUAL_HTML-->
<!-- what's going on box -->
<table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
<thead>
	<tr>
		<td class="tcat" colspan="2">$vbphrase[whats_going_on]</td>
	</tr>
</thead>
$template_hook[forumhome_wgo_pos1]
<if condition="$show['loggedinusers']">
<!-- logged-in users -->
<tbody>
	<tr>
		<td class="thead" colspan="2">
			<a style="float:$stylevar[right]" href="#top" onclick="return toggle_collapse('forumhome_activeusers')"><img id="collapseimg_forumhome_activeusers" src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/collapse_thead$vbcollapse[collapseimg_forumhome_activeusers].gif" alt="" border="0" /></a>
			<a href="online.php$session[sessionurl_q]">$vbphrase[currently_active_users]</a>: $totalonline (<phrase 1="$numberregistered" 2="$numberguest">$vbphrase[x_members_and_y_guests]</phrase>)
		</td>
	</tr>
</tbody>
<tbody id="collapseobj_forumhome_activeusers" style="$vbcollapse[collapseobj_forumhome_activeusers]">
	<tr>
		<td class="alt2"><a href="online.php$session[sessionurl_q]"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_misc]/whos_online.gif" alt="$vbphrase[view_whos_online]" border="0" /></a></td>
		<td class="alt1" width="100%">
			<div class="smallfont">
				<div style="white-space: nowrap"><phrase 1="$recordusers" 2="$recorddate" 3="$recordtime">$vbphrase[most_users_ever_online_was_x_y_at_z]</phrase></div>
				<div>$activeusers</div>
			</div>
		</td>
	</tr>
</tbody>
<!-- end logged-in users -->
</if>
$template_hook[forumhome_wgo_pos2]
<tbody>
	<tr>
		<td class="thead" colspan="2">
			<a style="float:$stylevar[right]" href="#top" onclick="return toggle_collapse('forumhome_stats')"><img id="collapseimg_forumhome_stats" src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/collapse_thead$vbcollapse[collapseimg_forumhome_stats].gif" alt="" border="0" /></a>
			<phrase 1="$vboptions[bbtitle]">$vbphrase[x_statistics]</phrase>
		</td>
	</tr>
</tbody>
<tbody id="collapseobj_forumhome_stats" style="$vbcollapse[collapseobj_forumhome_stats]">
	<tr>
		<td class="alt2"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_misc]/stats.gif" alt="<phrase 1="$vboptions[bbtitle]">$vbphrase[x_statistics]</phrase>" border="0" /></td>
		<td class="alt1" width="100%">
		<div class="smallfont">
			<div>
				$vbphrase[threads]: $totalthreads,
				$vbphrase[posts]: $totalposts,
				$vbphrase[members]: $numbermembers<if condition="$show['activemembers']">,
					<span title="<phrase 1="$vboptions[activememberdays]">$vbphrase[within_the_last_x_days]</phrase>">$vbphrase[active_members]: $activemembers</span>
				</if>
			</div>
			<div><phrase 1="member.php?$session[sessionurl]u=$newuserid" 2="$newusername">$vbphrase[welcome_to_our_newest_member_x]</phrase></div>
			$template_hook[forumhome_wgo_stats]
		</div>
		</td>
	</tr>
</tbody>
$template_hook[forumhome_wgo_pos3]
<if condition="$show['birthdays']">
<!-- today's birthdays -->
<tbody>
	<tr>
		<td class="thead" colspan="2">
			<a style="float:$stylevar[right]" href="#top" onclick="return toggle_collapse('forumhome_birthdays')"><img id="collapseimg_forumhome_birthdays" src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/collapse_thead$vbcollapse[collapseimg_forumhome_birthdays].gif" alt="" border="0" /></a>
			$vbphrase[todays_birthdays]
		</td>
	</tr>
</tbody>
<tbody id="collapseobj_forumhome_birthdays" style="$vbcollapse[collapseobj_forumhome_birthdays]">
	<tr>
		<td class="alt2"><a href="calendar.php?$session[sessionurl]do=getday&amp;day=$today&amp;sb=1"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_misc]/birthday.gif" alt="$vbphrase[view_birthdays]" border="0" /></a></td>
		<td class="alt1" width="100%"><div class="smallfont">$birthdays</div></td>
	</tr>
</tbody>
<!-- end today's birthdays -->
</if>
$template_hook[forumhome_wgo_pos4]
<if condition="$show['upcomingevents']">
<tbody>
	<tr>
		<td class="thead" colspan="2">
			<a style="float:$stylevar[right]" href="#top" onclick="return toggle_collapse('forumhome_events')"><img id="collapseimg_forumhome_events" src="$stylevar[imgdir_button]/collapse_thead$vbcollapse[collapseimg_forumhome_events].gif" alt="" border="0" /></a>
			<if condition="$show['todaysevents']">$vbphrase[todays_events]<else /><phrase 1="$vboptions[showevents]">$vbphrase[upcoming_events_for_the_next_x_days]</phrase></if>
		</td>
	</tr>
</tbody>
<tbody id="collapseobj_forumhome_events" style="$vbcollapse[collapseobj_forumhome_events]">
	<tr>
		<td class="alt2"><a href="calendar.php$session[sessionurl_q]"><img src="$stylevar[imgdir_misc]/calendar.gif" alt="$vbphrase[calendar]" border="0" /></a></td>
		<td class="alt1" width="100%"><div class="smallfont">$upcomingevents</div></td>
	</tr>
</tbody>
</if>
$template_hook[forumhome_wgo_pos5]
</table>
<br />
<!-- end what's going on box -->
<!--/VBSEO_VIRTUAL_HTML-->

Hello,

I've used this same option in what's going on but it doesn't work.
I can see the "<!--VBSEO_VIRTUAL_HTML-->" in the source, but not the last "<!--/VBSEO_VIRTUAL_HTML-->".

Using vBSEO 3.3.0 RC1.

i see the same problem. I also dont see any script tags in front of it, so I dont know if its working.

Do you know if the Virtual HTML is used on the VBSEO site? I dont see it in the source

I haven't seen, but I've read about it here: Virtual HTML Display - What is it?

Hello,

do you have vBSEO "HTML Cleanup" option enabled? If yes, does it work correctly if you disable that option?

HIello Oleg,

I have "HTML Cleanup" enabled. If I disabled it works!

Please try to modify functions_vbseo.php file:
FIND:

PHP Code:

'#<!--(\s*(\[|VBS|google_ad))#s', 


REPLACE WITH:

PHP Code:

'#<!--(\s*(\[|\/?VBS|google_ad))#s', 


Problem solved!
Thanks