XF 1.4 How to write description for threads? Vital for SEO

[Muhtefi]

Hello,

We can write descriptions for forums but we cannot do the same for threads.
As you may guess, it's really crucial for SEO.

Can someone advice how to do it, or if there is no such thing, can you make an update for te next release?

thanks

 

[Jeremy]

The description is auto generated from the first post in the thread...

 

[Mr Lucky]

It's not exactly vital for SEO, but more for the user of the search engine results as they see a description and may decide to click or not. Bbut as Jeremy said it is from the first post.

You could edit the initial text of the first post to suit, but the poster may not be too impressed.

I think in the end it's best to let this work itself out organically and not worry about SEO at thread level. Xenforo is basically quite good for SEO , but as with any site, content is what counts and with a forum you have less control over content as opposed to other sites or blogs.

Weeding out thin content (threads with no replies etc.) may help, but in the end I feel life is too short to worry. A good forum with a thriving community that discusses stuff intelligently based on your niche will win out, especially if it's on xenforo as opposed to that other forum software.

 

[Muhtefi]

Thanks for your answers guys. Auto generated description is not working most of the time. But editing the initial text may help, if it really strips the initial text.

I dont agree with you, Mr.Lucky. Description is quite vital for SEO, for the time being. This may change in the future, as google now focusing more on title and content in English language based search results. But in non-english markets, its still important.

I only want it for my own threads. Its vital for me to gain some members from search engines in the first place. Of course I will not need it once I maintain a thriving community in the future.

 

[Mr Lucky]

I dont agree with you, Mr.Lucky. Description is quite vital for SEO, for the time being.

I would agree it's vital to help with getting traffic to your site, but not so much for SEO. But if you know something I don't, it wouldn't surprise me at all.

But I do think editing the first post post in each thread may well help gain hits and possibly member conversions, though at the risk of alienating the poster, who may not like their post being edited.

 

[Muhtefi]

Believe me, description is really vital. Google reads the title, the url, the description and compares with the page content and decides for the topic (keyword) of that page. These 3 are the most important things in SEO for the time being.

I am only trying to do this for my own threads. I dont mean to touch members threads.

 

[Kintaro]

Believe me, description is really vital. Google reads the title, the url, the description and compares with the page content and decides for the topic (keyword) of that page.

for description you mean "meta description"?

 

[Mr Lucky]

Believe me, description is really vital. Google reads the title, the url, the description and compares with the page content and decides for the topic (keyword) of that page. These 3 are the most important things in SEO for the time being.
.

Unless Google has started using meta descriptions again for ranking, they do not use them, they went out with keywords:

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.co.uk/2009/09/google-does-not-use-keywords-meta-tag.html

Google 2009:

"Even though we sometimes use the description meta tag for the snippets we show, we still don't use the description meta tag in our ranking."

I'm not aware they started using the description again since then, though as I said it can be important to entice people to click through once they see you site listed.