Suzanne O
Well-known member
Reddit is not a forum. It's a social media platform.I’m glad you aren’t a fan of overmoderated forums!
Last Google Core Update
- Thread starter darkeye
- Start date
Alpha1
Well-known member
People used to search for their query and add the word 'Forum' to it. Nowadays they add the word 'Reddit' to it. That has a huge impact.
Reddit also is multilingual. So it does not only have subreddits about a specific topic and about related topics, it also has subreddits about the same or similar topics in many other languages. Having multilingual nodes on XF is SEO-suicide because XF simply doesn't support multiple languages. It will tell Google that all content is the main language.
Reddit has a wiki system, which is great for SEO.
Reddit Answers leverages AI to reuse its content to answer questions and link to existing threads. Thats also great for SEO because it adds new rich content that links to existing content AND lets the user click on internal links (which is a critical ranking factor). Clearly Reddit wants to be the go-to place for all users questions.
Reddit has a huge team of devs including SEO specialists. AFAIK the XF team never had its software SEO audited even once.
Google indeed reached out about a few metadata improvements. XF has made a number of very welcome improvements, but there IMHO is still a long way to go when it comes to technical SEO, HTML output, content categorization, internal linking, content discovery, merging high ranking threads into low ranking threads, dead links management, etc.
I can release basically the same content on XF and on WP and the Google ranking will be a world of difference.
Reddit also is multilingual. So it does not only have subreddits about a specific topic and about related topics, it also has subreddits about the same or similar topics in many other languages. Having multilingual nodes on XF is SEO-suicide because XF simply doesn't support multiple languages. It will tell Google that all content is the main language.
Reddit has a wiki system, which is great for SEO.
Reddit Answers leverages AI to reuse its content to answer questions and link to existing threads. Thats also great for SEO because it adds new rich content that links to existing content AND lets the user click on internal links (which is a critical ranking factor). Clearly Reddit wants to be the go-to place for all users questions.
Reddit has a huge team of devs including SEO specialists. AFAIK the XF team never had its software SEO audited even once.
Google indeed reached out about a few metadata improvements. XF has made a number of very welcome improvements, but there IMHO is still a long way to go when it comes to technical SEO, HTML output, content categorization, internal linking, content discovery, merging high ranking threads into low ranking threads, dead links management, etc.
I can release basically the same content on XF and on WP and the Google ranking will be a world of difference.
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cpvr
Member
Forums aren’t penalized, they’re valued.
Google recently rolled out AI overviews, which is causing some drops across sites across the globe.
The new core update focused on “high quality content” and valuable content. If your forum isn’t performing well, it’s time to dig deeper and find out what’s wrong. Are you building backlinks? Actively promoting? Establishing a presence? Google takes this in account. They look into your brand’s presence everywhere, whether it’s from social media, other forums, on reddit, blogs, etc.
Building backlinks keeps your site on the search engines and ranking well. Without them, you won’t perform that well.
Google March 2025 Core Update Done Rolling Out
Google's March 2025 core update is now done rolling out, it took 14 days, starting on March 13, 2025 at around 12:23 pm ET and ending on March 27, 2025 at around 8:34 am ET. Google posted saying, "The rollout was complete as of March 27, 2025."
Google March 2025 Core Update Quick Facts:
Here are the most important things that we know right now in short form:
- Name: Google March 2025 Broad Core Update
- Launched: March 13, 2025 at around 12:30 pm ET
- Completed: March 27, 2025 at around 8:34 am ET
- Targets: It looks at all types of content
- Penalty: It is not a penalty, it promotes or rewards great web pages
- Global: This is a global update impacting all regions, in all languages.
- Impact: The normal core update - updating some of the "core systems". Google said this March update is a "regular update." Maybe content creators will see better results but not sure on that.
- Discover: Core updates impact Google Discover and other features, also feature snippets and more.
- Recover: If you were hit by this, then you will need to look at your content and see if you can do better with Google's core update advice.
- Refreshes: Google will do periodic refreshes to this algorithm but may not communicate those updates in the future. Maybe this is what we saw the past couple of weeks or all those unconfirmed Google updates.
The Role of SEO in making branding understood by search engines and AI.
Click and read how to translate a Brand in signals that can be understood and scored by Google and LLM-based Search Systems.
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JustinHawk
Well-known member
Fix the critical issues identified by Google, and the results will improve significantly. We managed to fix 50% of the Discussion Forum Schema issues, and this has already led to noticeable improvements in search rankings and Google crawling for the forums I manage across various clients.
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
So you could add the word Reddit to your forum meta title
Alpha1
Well-known member
No. Its a creative thought but it will not work.
CedricV
Well-known member
How the f do you fix 14k issues.
I had 6 critical issues, leading to posts and that didn't made sense to get flagged anyway. Deleted the posts, but it didn't validate the issue.
Alpha1
Well-known member
IMHO what Xenforo needs is Yoast integration.
developer.yoast.com
Integrating Yoast SEO | Yoast developer portal
A hub for describing the technical specifications and requirements for integrating Yoast SEO.
developer.yoast.com
JustinHawk
Well-known member
Just a regex based job that determine the type of post - Text, Video or Image to update old posts. We resolved the text and Image ones.How the f do you fix 14k issues.
I had 6 critical issues, leading to posts and that didn't made sense to get flagged anyway. Deleted the posts, but it didn't validate the issue.
Currently working on Youtube data API to make sure even remaining 13k for youtube embed posts comes to zero
CedricV
Well-known member
Please share some of that brain of yours with me.Just a regex based job that determine the type of post - Text, Video or Image to update old posts. We resolved the text and Image ones.
Currently working on Youtube data API to make sure even remaining 13k for youtube embed posts comes to zero
IMHO what Xenforo needs is Yoast integration.
Integrating Yoast SEO | Yoast developer portal
A hub for describing the technical specifications and requirements for integrating Yoast SEO.
It would indeed be great if there were a professional SEO add-on. Xenforo isn't bad when it comes to SEO, but it can do a lot more.
For example, if I want to change the meta title and description tag for a topic without changing the topic heading, I have to install an add-on from Andy (meta tags).
For a custom meta title for the homepage, I also have to install a small add-on from Andy (meta title).
To add an H1 heading to the homepage, I have to do it manually in the templates.
These are just three examples.
It shouldn't be the case that I have to install small add-ons or change the templates for such important things. This should all be adjustable either via Xenforo or via a professional SEO plugin like Yoast.
There are many more SEO options, e.g., settings for follow, nofollow, and sponsored links. With these settings, we "help" Google improve our forum and are accordingly upgraded.
The first step would be to create a new menu item called "SEO" on the left in the admin area. After that, you can make further suggestions for improvement.
I'd gladly pay extra for such a professional SEO plugin!
ekool
Well-known member
We run a large number of forums. All of the forums are pretty much set up the same way. About 30% of them took a hit from the recent Google update. Some did not. Some saw a slight improvement. So it's not Xenforo, it's probably not even the sites content or anything like that. Just seems random.
When the Google search algo leaked -- you saw just how half-assed it was designed, and how it was held together by duct tape. I don't think Google knows what its doing anymore. Their quality has dropped a ton.... just luck of the draw now as they are doing whatever they can just to keep things held together, IMHO.
When the Google search algo leaked -- you saw just how half-assed it was designed, and how it was held together by duct tape. I don't think Google knows what its doing anymore. Their quality has dropped a ton.... just luck of the draw now as they are doing whatever they can just to keep things held together, IMHO.
eva2000
Well-known member
They can always use their AI LLM models to fix it heh
JBS
Active member
Just throwing this article out there that talks about forums getting hit...
www.searchenginejournal.com
Google's March Core Update: Early Observations From Initial Rollout
Google's March Core Update continues to rollout. Patterns are beginning to emerge as reports come in with data from the past week.
www.searchenginejournal.com
Chris2
Active member
Yep, pretty much what I had been noting. Couple snippets from the article:Just throwing this article out there that talks about forums getting hit...
Google's March Core Update: Early Observations From Initial Rollout
Google's March Core Update continues to rollout. Patterns are beginning to emerge as reports come in with data from the past week.
Sites gaining the most visibility include:
- Reddit.com
- Yelp.com
- HomeDepot.com
- Quora.com
- DIYChatroom.com
- GarageJournal.com
- Bluettipower.com
- Everfence.com
- MrHandyMan.com
Key Trends Emerging
Andrew Shotland, CEO of Local SEO Guide, identified several potential patterns in this update:1. Forum Content Devaluation
Two forums, DIYChatroom and GarageJournal, saw visibility drops despite having experienced a 1,000%+ increase over the past year.Shotland notes this may not be a direct demotion, but Google is elevating sites like Reddit alongside features like Discussions and Forums widgets and Popular Products grids.
JustinHawk
Well-known member
Honestly, I don't think that's the case. Most of the forums nowadays are not improving themselves for SEO. I haven't seen a single forum that I have going down. We are using everything that is feasible and can be utilized for improving the SEO. Making it easier for google to understand our content. Building a new forum is definitely very hard nowadays, but still it wasn't easy even back then. Not everyone successfully build one.
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Mr Lucky
Well-known member
For some reason Google seems to like us at the moment. But I have been doing a bit of SEO.
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