XF 1.5 xenForo Google results fall behind vBulletin

[ekool]

We run a very large number of community sites (upwards of 200). We started moving a few sites over to the xenForo platform over the past few years and we do prefer this product over vBulletin.

However, Google prefers vBulletin. What can we do about this?

Here are a few examples to illustrate:
*) in google webmaster tools we receive notices about vBulletin patches that are available, we have not received any concerning xenForo
*) Google search results for a vBulletin forum landing page will have it's title prepended with the brand tag "Forums: ", xenForo titles are not.
*) We have started up sites in xenForo with SEO in mind, at the same time as a competitor starting up a vBulletin version. Our site shows more activity (traffic and posts), however the vBulletin competition's site still ranks higher in Google results. To be fair, in Bing we rank higher but the vast majority of our search traffic comes from Google.

The conclusion seems to be that Google is aware of vBulletin and not xenForo. Is there anything being done about this, or is there any interest in doing anything about this?

We prefer the xenForo product, but at the end of the day we are a business specializing in forum communities, so if our main source of traffic will always recognize vBulletin over xenForo then to remain competitive we will be forced to stop investing in xenForo licenses and continue with vBulletin. At this point any new sites we build are being done in vBulletin 4 for this very reason.

 

[rdn]

It's ultimately Google, being Google.

Sites with non-default styles work too:

View attachment 125715

Maybe it is related to something else such as page rank.

Or because they show this data to guest?

 

[Martok]

Or because they show this data to guest?

I don't think so. I show that data to guests but mine isn't recognised in the same way.

 

[Mert]

My best will be directly on SSL as i stated on my previous message.

 

[MstrfBlng]

What is the criteria you are using to say a forum is or isn't recognized as a forum by Google ?

See the post of Chris D, when it's recognized, it shows the amount of posts and authors too.

 

[erich37]

I know that everyone including Google itself is saying that "Meta Keywords" are not relevant anymore.
Still many top-ranking websites are using "Meta Keywords".

<meta name="keywords" content="iphone, forum, smartphone, apple, blablabla" />

Did anyone of you guys check whether adding "Meta Keywords" to your XF-Forum will increase your position in search-results ?
Just do a test and verify....

 

[MstrfBlng]

Maybe it is related to something else such as page rank.

Maybe, we started a while ago with YAF Forum software, in Google this was recognized as a forum. After that (2014) we started to use vB5 (yes stupid...) and Google didn't recognize us as a forum anymore. And now were are on XF (happy with that!) but still not recognized. Maybe we need to be patient.

 

[Chris D]

If I remember correctly, when a lot of these new Google features were rolled out it took us some time before we started getting the metadata displayed in search results, so it likely is a timing thing. Judging by when you purchased your license I would definitely say that more waiting is required. It will happen eventually, I reckon.

 

[MstrfBlng]

Yes, I'll be patient. Just checked the pagerank of our competition (with working Google forum recognition) and he has PR 0 LOL. We have PR 2.

 

[rdn]

My XF Forum, was started using XF 1.x last December 2012.
Old enough to wait :/.

 

[thedude]

New post block on index page , all links are displayed as showpost urls instead of actual thread url. They are 301 redirected but why display showpost url when you can directly use thread url ?

Just thinking out loud...

https://xenforo.com/community/posts/1024685/

vs

https://xenforo.com/community/threads/wikipedia-bb-code-media-site.58372/#post-1024685

Linking to a post solely by post # saves a db query, since the title of the thread which contains that particular post doesn't need to be included in the URL, like it would be if the full URL of the post is used.

That might be why it's done like that.

 

[Weppa333]

For @Chris D I reckon adminzone is a valid example of a custom themed XF which is lucky enough to get extended microdata showed in the SERP.
You proved me wrong on this one.

From my own findings, it's obvious to me that this "google post processing" (showing post count in the search results) is only beeing done for something like PR4+ (PR5 and more), however I've only seen it on default skin XF (this site and some others).
It's a good news of the darn google parser can parse "adminzone".
I'll, however, look deeply into their metadata and where they put it in their code.

 

[OguzhanM]

Same problem here .

I had my WordPress blog website. 10-30 thousand visitors daily. Xenforo forums have established /forum one year ago. The index is very slow. Sometimes it takes 6 days 5.

 

[MstrfBlng]

Well the index is not slow at our XF forum. Google indexed 80.000 pages in just one week here. So no complaints there.

I only wish that our forum will be recognized as a forum in Google.

 

[tajhay]

What exactly are the benefits of google recognising a site as a forum besides showing the number of posts/authors etc?

 

[Fred.]

My main site (PR4) is recognised as a forum, using the default style.
Another new forum (PR0) is not recognised also using the default style.

They are on the same server witch the same settings.
It really seems to have to do something with the ranking.

 

[Mr Lucky]

What exactly are the benefits of google recognising a site as a forum besides showing the number of posts/authors etc?

I have always presumed (or hoped) they are more forgiving of lower quality or duplicate content on forums as the site owner has less control over that.

 

[Fred.]

I switched my main site (PR4) to a new domain almost 2 months ago and it's not recognised as a forum anymore. :-(

 

[Senpai]

We run a very large number of community sites (upwards of 200). We started moving a few sites over to the xenForo platform over the past few years and we do prefer this product over vBulletin.

However, Google prefers vBulletin. What can we do about this?

Here are a few examples to illustrate:
*) in google webmaster tools we receive notices about vBulletin patches that are available, we have not received any concerning xenForo
*) Google search results for a vBulletin forum landing page will have it's title prepended with the brand tag "Forums: ", xenForo titles are not.
*) We have started up sites in xenForo with SEO in mind, at the same time as a competitor starting up a vBulletin version. Our site shows more activity (traffic and posts), however the vBulletin competition's site still ranks higher in Google results. To be fair, in Bing we rank higher but the vast majority of our search traffic comes from Google.

The conclusion seems to be that Google is aware of vBulletin and not xenForo. Is there anything being done about this, or is there any interest in doing anything about this?

We prefer the xenForo product, but at the end of the day we are a business specializing in forum communities, so if our main source of traffic will always recognize vBulletin over xenForo then to remain competitive we will be forced to stop investing in xenForo licenses and continue with vBulletin. At this point any new sites we build are being done in vBulletin 4 for this very reason.

Hey I'm telling you I was on vB and now I moved my forum to xF and I've done the best choice ever because dude you should see how much great features we got and yeah you were talking about traffic you are not going to lose traffic and there's SEO built inside adminCP .. Just give xF a chance that would support everyone and Xenforo would develop more awesome features

 

[MstrfBlng]

Our forum still isn't being recognized as a forum by Google, now almost 5 months later.

But I have to say Xenforo is the best switch we have done. Our members love it.

 

[Mr Lucky]

you are not going to lose traffic and there's SEO built inside adminCP .

What do you mean by "SEO built inside adminCP?"