Article or Discussion for different types of content and SEO?

[Mr Lucky]

I hadn't given this much thought before but I'm about to publish a couple of specialist glossaries and haven't decided yet whether I want to allow replies/commenting. If so I know they will probably go all over the place in regard to focus so could potentially be detrimental to SEO. Or maybe not.

It could be a double edged sword - great if the comments stay on topic and add appropriate use of keywords or it could be bad if it's just rambling OT nonsense and jokes (which of course I could "curate" but they (members) often don't like it when I do that.

So my choice is whether to allow replies, and whether there is any SEO advantage for something like this to choose article type over thread type.

The new discussion forum markup looks good - but does this mean if Google recognises it's a forum then they cut us some slack recognising UGC is bound to go a bit all over the place compared to nicely written articulate text that is encouraged by SEO plugins like Yoast?

I was excited to see the post by @rrlevering although the thread ended up being a bit too techy for me to fully grasp.

Implemented Thread 'Markup improvements for Google'

Mar 17, 2023

Hi, my name is Ryan Levering and I currently handle structured data ingestion at Google (this guy). I've been doing some fairly spontaneous spot checks (not based on any specific problem) of some of the major forum software markups on the web just to see whether the markup is being generated in an ideal way for our systems to ingest. You can stick a URL in http://validator.schema.org to get an idea of what your markup for a given URL looks like. I have a couple of high-level suggestions to take or leave as you see fit:

1. Include more than the OP with...

• rrlevering
• google schema.org
• Replies: 116
• Forum: Closed suggestions

• 
• 

I would like to take advantage of the new structured data improvements coming in 2.2.14 so can anyone please advise:

• Publish the Glossary as an article type and allow commenting (which may or may not stay on topic)
• Publish the Glossary as an article type and not allow comments
• Publish the Glossary as a discussion thread type and allow commenting (which may or may not stay on topic)
• Publish the Glossary as a discussion thread type and not allow comments

 

[Donny]

I hadn't given this much thought before but I'm about to publish a couple of specialist glossaries and haven't decided yet whether I want to allow replies/commenting. If so I know they will probably go all over the place in regard to focus so could potentially be detrimental to SEO. Or maybe not.

It could be a double edged sword - great if the comments stay on topic and add appropriate use of keywords or it could be bad if it's just rambling OT nonsense and jokes (which of course I could "curate" but they (members) often don't like it when I do that.

So my choice is whether to allow replies, and whether there is any SEO advantage for something like this to choose article type over thread type.

The new discussion forum markup looks good - but does this mean if Google recognises it's a forum then they cut us some slack recognising UGC is bound to go a bit all over the place compared to nicely written articulate text that is encouraged by SEO plugins like Yoast?

I was excited to see the post by @rrlevering although the thread ended up being a bit too techy for me to fully grasp.

Implemented Thread 'Markup improvements for Google'

Mar 17, 2023

Hi, my name is Ryan Levering and I currently handle structured data ingestion at Google (this guy). I've been doing some fairly spontaneous spot checks (not based on any specific problem) of some of the major forum software markups on the web just to see whether the markup is being generated in an ideal way for our systems to ingest. You can stick a URL in http://validator.schema.org to get an idea of what your markup for a given URL looks like. I have a couple of high-level suggestions to take or leave as you see fit:

1. Include more than the OP with...

• rrlevering
• google schema.org
• Replies: 116
• Forum: Closed suggestions

• 
• 

I would like to take advantage of the new structured data improvements coming in 2.2.14 so can anyone please advise:

• Publish the Glossary as an article type and allow commenting (which may or may not stay on topic)
• Publish the Glossary as an article type and not allow comments
• Publish the Glossary as a discussion thread type and allow commenting (which may or may not stay on topic)
• Publish the Glossary as a discussion thread type and not allow comments

Watching this.

 

[Suzanne O]

I'd be inclined to have both with the article threads locked but stickied.
Then have threads that discuss it.

I do the same when i show my artwork on my forum.
One locked thread that will allow me to add to it with every drawing i do.
I then have a discussion thread about it.
It seems to engage everyone there.