Display Thread Views when Merging Threads (SEO)

[Alpha1]

When you merge threads you are doing so blindly. It may well be that you are merging a thread with a mass of views into a thread with a few views. This is of high importance and may be a massive mistake, because threads with high views are likely to have many links pointed to it from your own site and from other sites. So by merging you are loosing valuable links and creating a lot of dead links. Google responds to this by lowering your ranking and decreasing your traffic.

This can easily be fixed by adding a small feature: display thread views when merging.

It would also be nice to have the following settings in admincp:
Sort threads for merging on:

• views
• replies
• most recent

On search results thread views are not displayed to staff. It would be really useful to have this visible.

These small enhancements can have a lot of impact on SEO. Especially for larger boards with high traffic threads.

 

[djbaxter]

threads with high views are likely to have many links pointed to it from your own site and from other sites. So by merging you are loosing valuable links and creating a lot of dead links.

I may be wrong but I think merging takes care of redirection.

Google responds to this by lowering your ranking and decreasing your traffic.
er boards with high traffic threads.

404's don't lower your ranking.

 

[Alpha1]

I may be wrong but I think merging takes care of redirection.

You can merge with permanent redirect, but this is rarely useful to users. It leaves a visible redirect thread in the forum and these add up. They get in the way of usability.

404's don't lower your ranking.

lol

 

[djbaxter]

lol

lol away.

Show me any evidence at all that 404s lower Google rankings. Note I said evidence, not anecdotes.

Do 404s Hurt SEO and Rankings?

Status code 404 is probably the most common HTTP error that people encounter when they're browsing the web. If you've been using the internet for over a year, chances that you haven't encountered one yet are pretty low. They're very common. Â Normally, people don't pay too much attention to...

cognitiveseo.com

Do 404s hurt my site?

Official news on crawling and indexing sites for the Google index

webmasters.googleblog.com

 

[Alpha1]

Sorry man. I stopped taking you serious years ago. No offense meant. lets just agree to disagree.

 

[djbaxter]

Yeah that's what I thought.

I showed you some evidence supporting my statement, including a link to Google's statement on the issue.

You have nothing to support your rather immature "lol".

 

[Alpha1]

You retroactively edited in irrelevant links now. The pages you linked to are not remotely about the same topic.

This suggestion is about loosing URLs for high traffic pages with links pointed to these pages. A 404 for a non-existing page generally not an issue. A 404 for an existing high traffic page with inbound links is a different matter. The difference is loosing both inbound links as well as influx of traffic.

I'm going to put you back on ignore now.

 

[djbaxter]

Nice try. You specifically stated that 404 errors causes Google to "lower your ranking".

by merging you are loosing valuable links and creating a lot of dead links. Google responds to this by lowering your ranking and decreasing your traffic.

And, by the way, I think you meant "losing" not "loosing".

 

[Joe Link]

When you merge threads you are doing so blindly. It may well be that you are merging a thread with a mass of views into a thread with a few views. This is of high importance and may be a massive mistake, because threads with high views are likely to have many links pointed to it from your own site and from other sites. So by merging you are loosing valuable links and creating a lot of dead links. Google responds to this by lowering your ranking and decreasing your traffic.

This can easily be fixed by adding a small feature: display thread views when merging.

This is a good idea.

Edit inline_mod_thread_merge and change this:

<xf:foreach loop="$threads" value="$thread">
    <xf:option value="{$thread.thread_id}">{{ prefix('thread', $thread, 'escaped') }}{$thread.title}</xf:option>
</xf:foreach>

To this:

<xf:foreach loop="$threads" value="$thread">
    <xf:option value="{$thread.thread_id}">{{ prefix('thread', $thread, 'escaped') }}{$thread.title} - (views: {$thread.view_count})</xf:option>
</xf:foreach>

To get this:

 

[Ozzy47]

This is a good idea.

Edit inline_mod_thread_merge and change this:

<xf:foreach loop="$threads" value="$thread">
    <xf:option value="{$thread.thread_id}">{{ prefix('thread', $thread, 'escaped') }}{$thread.title}</xf:option>
</xf:foreach>

To this:

<xf:foreach loop="$threads" value="$thread">
    <xf:option value="{$thread.thread_id}">{{ prefix('thread', $thread, 'escaped') }}{$thread.title} - (views: {$thread.view_count})</xf:option>
</xf:foreach>

To get this:

I'll see if it's feasible to make this into an addon.

Edit: Sure it is. I'll do this a bit later.

 

[Mr Lucky]

It leaves a visible redirect thread in the forum and these add up. They get in the way of usability.

But as there will be no replies they sink lower and lower down the thread list. Besides being there means post urls that we’re merged will stay intact, which is useful for usability if people had bookmarks for them

I may be wrong but I think merging takes care of redirection

Only if you tick the box for a visible redirection