"Google May 2020 Core Update" affecting your xF Forum?

[Anatoliy]

there really is no specific action you can take with forum content that is sure & known to help to improve your position in SERPs

I guess the problem here is that we refuse to see things, that are not ok, as things that are not ok (just because Google didn't say before that they are not ok). For example usernames under avatars are <h4>. DigNap15 posted on this page 5 times so the page has 5 identical headers. Is that a good formatted html page? Hell no. It's some automatically generated mess. Yellow card. There is H1 and 20 of H4, half of them are identical. Where are H2 and H3? Second yellow card, that turns into a red card. Disqualification. )

Site structure. My forum has 20k threads. More then half of them can be reached from home page in 10+ clicks. Will a good site keep valuable pages on a 10+ clicks away distance? So why should G treat those page as valuable ones?

Pictures. Modern pages use sets of pix for different screen sizes. xenForo pages show the same full size picture regardless if it's a desktop or a mobile visitor...

And so on, and so on...

 

[djbaxter]

I guess the problem here is that we refuse to see things, that are not ok, as things that are not ok (just because Google didn't say before that they are not ok). For example usernames under avatars are <h4>. DigNap15 posted on this page 5 times so the page has 5 identical headers. Is that a good formatted html page? Hell no. It's some automatically generated mess. Yellow card. There is H1 and 20 of H4, half of them are identical. Where are H2 and H3? Second yellow card, that turns into a red card. Disqualification. )

1. The number of H tags on a page don't matter for ranking. They may or may not matter for user experience.
2. Do you really think that any of DigNap's posts in this thread would qualify as quality contact in any universe?

Google Says H1 Headings Are Useful but Not Critical

Google's John Mueller answers why H1 headings are useful but not critical

www.searchenginejournal.com

Google Says H1 Tags Are Not Critical For Search Ranking

Google's John Mueller said that your site can rank fine with or without H1 tags. You don't have to use any H1 tags, or you can use many, either way, it is not a critical issue specifically for Google search. He did say it helps Google understand the structure of the page, just like it helps...

www.seroundtable.com

Site structure. My forum has 20k threads. More then half of them can be reached from home page in 10+ clicks. Will a good site keep valuable pages on a 10+ clicks away distance? So why should G treat those page as valuable ones?

Correct. That's a matter of restructuring your content (nodes/threads not posts).

Pictures. Modern pages use sets of pix for different screen sizes. xenForo pages show the same full size picture regardless if it's a desktop or a mobile visitor...

That's incorrect. Images (most if not all) resize according to different screen sizes.

 

[arn]

Site structure plays a part. but we are dealing with long-long tail searches, generally.

The problem is we don't know what threads are important (good quality) and what aren't important. Which means they are also all equally unimportant. If you don't know what threads are important on your own forum, then how would google know?

arn

 

[Anatoliy]

1. The number of H tags on a page don't matter for ranking.

agree. what about identical h tags? will any page editor (a human) put on a page several headers that are the same? and if yes, what could be a reason for that?

That's incorrect. Images (most if not all) resize according to different screen sizes.

you mean avatars? what about "insert full size" attachments in posts?

 

[Anatoliy]

The problem is we don't know what threads are important (good quality) and what aren't important. Which means they are also all equally unimportant. If you don't know what threads are important on your own forum, then how would google know?

Not entirely true. Featured threads plugin (hope some day core feature) quite helps with that.
A move toward article/Q&A threads types in 2.2 would quite help with that too.

 

[arn]

Not entirely true. Featured threads plugin (hope some day core feature) quite helps with that.
A move toward article/Q&A threads types in 2.2 would quite help with that too.

Yeah, that will help. But it requires manual effort and is a small number of threads compared to the whole.

arn

 

[Anatoliy]

But it requires manual effort

That's the point. And I'm with Google on this one. Pages built with manual effort must be higher in serps that pages that were automatically built from posts by Internet Napoleons. )

 

[askandy]

Pages built with manuals effort must be higher in serps that pages that were automatically built from posts by Internet Napoleons.

I would respectfully disagree with this statement.

We have some of the most experienced people in our category that contribute & reply to threads in our forums. Their collective knowledge is more valuable than information coming from any single writer (of an article), or "influencer", by many multiples.

The idea that an article, likely written mostly by one individual, has more authority (or is more valuable) than a discussion about the same topic is counter-intuitive if you ask me.

Of course the above is my opinion, based on what I've seen from our members. Though, there are plenty of topic threads that go off the rails too, and don't provide value to the reader.

Not all forums are filled with expert opinions or information, so I understand how it might be hard for Google to determine what site is an authority and which one is not.

I'm planning to dig into our Search Console data to see where the drops in activity were after the May 2020 update. Maybe that will shed some light as to things we can do to gain back some of our traffic.

More to come

 

[arn]

so, this is where I think Xenforo's new Search forums could help.

If you create subforms for certain types of threads: mega threads, highly rated threads, answered threads, etc... that will elevate those threads in visibility for both users and google.

arn

 

[Vroomm]

I actually think Google has gotten worse in recent years than it was before.

From a users perspective, Google sucks apeballs now.

Do a search for any term and you see gazillion words articles with the keywords repeated million times makes you want to puke. The top 10 are going to have same rehashed information and you feel like you're here to judge the writing skills of authors to see how they can spin the same information 10 different ways.

This is for popular queries. If you're looking to find something that the whole humanity isn't searching for already, you're SOL. Because all you will get is the same popular sites nonsense articles with gazillion words that you get if you searched for some popular search terms. Simply because Google sees one keyword in your search and think that's what you want ignoring the rest of search.

I actually have to either use quotes or search within the sites themselves which i know might contain the information i am looking for.

You can see how for some queries people search "keyword reddit". That's how crap Google results are that people want to instead see reddits results only instead of the rehashed made for Google articles by popular sites.

And it's because of the Google authority crap that they introduced in recent updates. You could literally fart but if you've a site with authority then it would still rank. Google doesn't even look if the information is present on the site, just that it has to be authoritative.

Anyway, seems like everything good comes to an end. I find myself resorting to other places as a search user. Of course as a webmaster is a different story.

 

[Anatoliy]

Not all forums are filled with expert opinions or information, so I understand how it might be hard for Google to determine what site is an authority and which one is not.

exactly. even more. knowledgeable members on authority forums in one thread post valuable stuff that will be useful for years and talk about this moment things, that will have no value next week in another thread. and just goofing around in a third one. how the hell can google recognize which one is which?)
xF with thread types made a really good move.

 

[djbaxter]

agree. what about identical h tags? will any page editor (a human) put on a page several headers that are the same? and if yes, what could be a reason for that?

Multiple H1s won’t get in the way of your SEO, Google says

Google still uses semantic headings to understand the context of different parts of your pages, though.

searchengineland.com

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you mean avatars? what about "insert full size" attachments in posts?

I mean any images.

 

[Anatoliy]

Multiple H1s won’t get in the way of your SEO, Google says

Google still uses semantic headings to understand the context of different parts of your pages, though.

searchengineland.com

not multiple. identical. I can see why I would put 20 h4s on a page. I can't see why some of them would be identical.

I mean any images.

you mean "responsive images", that feet screens of all devices nicely? but is it really nicely if a mobile visitor has to download 2000px width, 1.5 MB picture, if his screen is 400px? nicely would be if a desktop user would get 2000px width pic & a mobile visitor would get 500px pic.

 

[djbaxter]

not multiple. identical. I can see why I would put 20 h4s on a page. I can't see why some of them would be identical.

Neither can I.

you mean "responsive images", that feet screens of all devices nicely? but is it really nicely if a mobile visitor has to download 2000px width, 1.5 MB picture, if his screen is 400px? nicely would be if a desktop user would get 2000px width pic & a mobile visitor would get 500px pic.

Xenforo software is designed as responsive. That means that any images should automatically downsize for smaller screen sizes.

The only exception I've seen is where the admin adds large non-responsive ad banners. Make sure you use responsive ads or an addon thar makes them responsive.

I believe this also applies to the Xenforo media gallery addon but I can't swear to that - I don't use it.

 

[Anatoliy]

any images should automatically downsize for smaller screen sizes

by downsize you mean in pixels? or in kilobytes?

 

[arn]

Neither can I.


Xenforo software is designed as responsive. That means that any images should automatically downsize for smaller screen sizes.

The only exception I've seen is where the admin adds large non-responsive ad banners. Make sure you use responsive ads or an addon thar makes them responsive.

I believe this also applies to the Xenforo media gallery addon but I can't swear to that - I don't use it.

@Anatoliy is talking about implementing srcset, which provides multiple file sizes for images depending on the device capabilities. Its nice, but you would have to resize all images into multiple thumbnails. Or implement some sort of resizing-on-the-fly service.

Now, that would be great to have for multiple reasons, but it does introduce a lot of complexity.

arn

 

[djbaxter]

by downsize you mean in pixels? or in kilobytes?

Pixels.

You can and should limit the filesize of any uploads.

 

[Anatoliy]

Pixels.

You can and should limit the filesize of any uploads.

just 3 mnts

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[Anatoliy]

Now, that would be great to have for multiple reasons, but it does introduce a lot of complexity.

xF would save 3 versions of an attachment, so a forum owner would need a bigger disk space. that's one.
what are the others?

 

[arn]

xF would save 3 versions of an attachment, so a forum owner would need a bigger disk space. that's one.
what are the others?

I guess I was thinking of the auto resizing service like Thumbor or Cloudflare. But yeah, you could just set up multiple thumbnails to be processed on upload. I'd like that anyway, because I'd like a full-width embed size but have option to save original file.

arn