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A little disappointed... Started by elk_is_cool · · Read 10643 times 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic. previous topic - next topic

A little disappointed...

 When I take a sentence "snippet" from one of my forums using Elk, it doesn't show in Google.  If I take a snippet from one of my "other" make forums, it shows up in Google.  Wonder whats wrong?

Actual example below., Here is a snippet from one of my Elk forums NOT showing up in Google:  (this post was from this February)

"I hope you like my latest abstract painting.  It has a Southwestern look I've been told."   (cut and paste into Google) 
Last Edit: December 02, 2016, 01:26:17 pm by elk_is_cool

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #1 –

QuoteNo results found for "I hope you like my latest abstract painting. It has a Southwestern look I've been told.".

Results for I hope you like my latest abstract painting. It has a Southwestern look Ive been told. (without quotes):

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #2 –

Interesting.  I tried this on my forum.  For certain categories I take part of the first message in a topic and put it on the site's front page in a blog format.  Text in those parts of the message return my blog page as the first result in a google search.  No link to the forum topic or message itself.  Also if I search on text later in the message (parts that did not get posted on the front page) google does not provide a link to my site (at least not near the top).

It does seem for whatever reason google isn't too fond of indexing the posted content of elkarte pages.  This could also explain why google is so fond of associating my site with the repetitive info of the forum rather than the actual content.  Keywords for my forum include "logged", "views" and "quote".  I've also mentioned in the past that the pages it picked if you searched my domain were things like the credits and the login and register pages so I set them all to return no index.

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #3 –

I wonder if this is due to the naming conventions in the layout of elkarte.  I just checked a phpBB forum and picked a random post down a page and searched for a quoted line.  Google returned a link to that post on that forum.

On phpBB the messages are contained in divs whose class is "content".  In ElkArte the messages are contained in divs whose class is called "inner".  Perhaps inner should be called "content".
Last Edit: September 03, 2016, 11:20:46 pm by scripple

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #4 –

I guess there is another " Google not indexing " thread on this forum. But that was about links.

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #5 –

Just as an interesting observation the parts of my front page being indexed are in a div that does contain "content" in its class although not the actual stand-alone word "content". 

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #6 –

Also noticed this.  In the Display template there is a class called content that is used to contain polls at the top.  I have a few pages with polls.  Sure enough the poll question and poll choices are indexed with google and return a link to the exact page.  Somewhat unexpectedly searches for exact text in messages in replies to the poll topic ON THE FIRST PAGE (which has the content div holding the poll) also return links to that page.  Messages on following pages (at standard pagination size which google would see) return no links from google.

I wonder if this is why I see SOOOOOOOOO many robots on a particular topic with a poll in it far more often than any other topic.

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #7 –

So I did a little experiment.  I modified the display template to replace class "inner" with the class "messageContent".  I also went into the css files and copied the inner class itself over to messageContent (and just renamed the .inner > .bbc_table_container stuff as I don't think they're used outside of the display page).  I chose messageContent because it isn't used anywhere in ElkArte (so I didn't have to worry about fixing "content" everywhere it was used) and also because that was a close wrapper on Xenforo for their messages. 

Next I chose an older topic on my forum and searched for phrases from it on google.  No results returned.  I then submitted that topic to google to reindex which happily it started on right away.  A few seconds later I searched for the same quoted text and it was returned as the first link on google.  A waited a few more minutes and grabbed some text randomly from page 6 of the topic.  Also first result on google linking to the correct page.

I've submitted a almost 2 year old topic but google hasn't started indexing it yet.  Right now quotes don't find the page.  Hopefully after it's reindexed it will.  If so this is a very simple change that seems like it could have big impacts on google friendliness.

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #8 –

Well happy result.  Google reindexed the first page of the two year old topic and searching for the first sentence of the first page now even without quotes returns my site as the first hit where it didn't a few minutes ago.  It has moved in front of a few wikis with many similar terms.  Checking the google cache time it definitely just reread the page as the cache time is a few minutes ago.

Is it really the change of markup or the reindexing?  I have no way to prove it but you'd think since it was a two year old post it would have been indexed several times.  Checking later pages in the topic google's cached copy is a few months old.

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #10 –

Sorry, I was in a hurry (lunch was waiting :P).

Okay, let's expand a bit.
Interesting what scripple found.
The URL I posted above, obviously refers to Elk 1.1 that has mainly 1 little difference: the use of some more html5 tags in probably more appropriate positions.
To be on the same line, I tested also an 1.0 site:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Adesso%20metto%20una%20seconda%20immagine,%20ma%20prima%20un%20po%27%20di%20testo%20per%20fare%20spazio%20e%20vedere%20quanto%20taglia.%22
and this, again, is interesting, even more because it's a direct (involuntary) comparison with an SMF 2.0 site[1].
So, what we see is:
1) the topic of the elk site is apparently not indexed,
2) instead the profile page is indexed,
3) the SMF site shows the topic.

Since scripple mentioned classes, let's see the chain we have in the three situations:
1) elk display page:
Code: [Select]
html
    body#chrome.action_messageindex.board_1
        div#wrapper.wrapper
            div#main_content_section
                div#forumposts.forumposts
                    form#quickModForm
                        div.post_wrapper.windowbg
                            div.postarea
                                div#msg4.inner

2) elk profile page:
Code: [Select]
html
    body#chrome.action_profile
        div#wrapper.wrapper
            div#main_content_section
                div#admin_content
                    div#profilecenter
                        div.windowbg.core_posts
                            div.inner

3) SMF 2.0 (PremiumMGC theme)
Code: [Select]
html
    body
        div#wrapper
            div#content_section
                div
                    div#main_content_section
                        table#sp_main
                            tbody
                                tr
                                    td#sp_center
                                        div#forumposts
                                            form#quickModForm
                                                div.windowbg
                                                    div.post_wrapper
                                                        div.postarea
                                                            div.post
                                                                div#msg_15026.inner

For the sake of comparison, elk 1.1 has:
Code: [Select]
html
    body#chrom.action_messageindex.board_3
        div#wrapper.wrapper
            section#main_content_section
                div#forumposts
                    main
                        form#quickModForm
                            article.post_wrapper.forumposts
                                div.postarea
                                    div#msg_28413.inner

What scripple is suggesting could make sense, the only two potential post-related identifiers in 1.0 are:
Code: [Select]
                        div.post_wrapper.windowbg
                            div.postarea
though, both contain the word "post", but is not the full name of the class, it's part of a bigger name.
So it could mean that google doesn't "split" the class name, but just takes everything and compares it with some list of words that may mean "content".
1 I guess I was trying to compare the two, I don't remember why, but it's not important↵
Bugs creator.
Features destroyer.
Template killer.

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #11 –

To be clear my simple change was

Code: [Select]
html
    body#chrome.action_messageindex.board_1
        div#wrapper.wrapper
            div#main_content_section
                div#forumposts.forumposts
                    form#quickModForm
                        div.post_wrapper.windowbg
                            div.postarea
                                div#msg4.messageContent

I don't know if google treats post as meaning content or not, although it seemed to work for your SMF example.  The phpBB and XenForo forums I looked at use #content and #messageContent.  My blog page that gets indexed uses #ddtcontent.  DDT is specific to my forum so it's not so helpful to google yet google seems happy to pick up on the content in those divs as well.

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #12 –

https://www.google.it/search?q=Secondo+Jeremy+Clarkson+la+Skoda+superb+viene+paragonata+a+un+pezzo+di+formaggio.....ed+e+al+terzo+posto.+Ma+che+sta+a+d%C3%AC.&oq=Secondo+Jeremy+Clarkson+la+Skoda+superb+viene+paragonata+a+un+pezzo+di+formaggio.....ed+e+al+terzo+posto.+Ma+che+sta+a+d%C3%AC.&aqs=chrome..69i57&client=ubuntu&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

That's strange, I see the page indexed just because it was published on my homepage with simple portal, but I don't see the topic
sorry for my bad english

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #13 –

Sounds like my front page.  What's the markup around it on simple portal?

Re: A little disappointed...

Reply #14 –

Is there a fix for this? 
sorry for my bad english