20 replies to this topic

[Gatorhardware]

I have been working on a forum for aviation and followed some advice and switched to Invision. I really like the software so far and it was pretty simple to setup. My problem is that Google has only indexed the main page and does not seem to be crawling the sub pages. Is there something that you have to setup or do I have to wait for g to get around to it? The forum is one link off of a PR5 site and gets crawled daily just doesn't seem to want to go any deeper. Any thoughts? Should I just hold out?

-Gator

[SearchRank]

If the forum is new, I would give it another month or two. Besides, if it is the forum in your signature file, it doesn't look like there is much to crawl yet - 14 topics and 19 posts.

[Scottie]

Your long forum name isn't helping things- I'd recommend shortening it to Aviation Forums so that your individual thread titles show up in the page title. As it is now, every page title looks the same and that can discourage a spider from going further.

You can rearrange the title to show the thread title first by changing the code in sources>Topics.php at line 968.

It should look like this:

CODE

$print->do_output( array( 'TITLE'    => $this->topic['title']." -> {$ibforums->vars['board_name']}",

[Lauren]

have you enabled the spider bots in the admin panel?

system settings>search engine spiders>Enable the search engine spider recognition?

and then configure the rest

[Gatorhardware]

Thank you everyone. I will just give it some more time. There isn't much going on there yet but I am getting some nice traffic now. We are ranked number 4 or so for aviation forums. Just waiting for new members. I will double check the spiders setting. I am pretty sure I did enable it but I will check. I will also work on the titles. I didn't think about that at all. Thank you everyone.

[Jill]

Don't expect lots of new members by just waiting around for the search engines to bring them. You'll have to figure out other ways of letting them know about your forum.

[Scottie]

Definitely. If you are waiting for people to search for it, it will be empty a while. Try and find a core group of enthusiasts to start posting or invite some of the more "prominent" people in the field to be moderators or VIP's to get the ball rolling.

[Gatorhardware]

I was thinking about doing some print advertising at my local airport. I might get my flight instructors involved as well. I do not get much time to get down there though. I am slooooowly working on the main site for aviation nuts with more to do then just the forums. Hopefully that will also help build interest.

[Gatorhardware]

Your long forum name isn't helping things- I'd recommend shortening it to Aviation Forums so that your individual thread titles show up in the page title.  As it is now, every page title looks the same and that can discourage a spider from going further.

You can rearrange the title to show the thread title first by changing the code in sources>Topics.php at line 968.

It should look like this:

CODE

$print->do_output( array( 'TITLE'    => $this->topic['title']." -> {$ibforums->vars['board_name']}",

Scottie,

I changed the code and uploaded it but it does not seem to change anything. Maybe I did something wrong. Also in my files it was on line 974. Does it make a difference that I am using the free version?

[Jill]

I'm not sure, but the free and paid shouldn't be different. Paying just removes the name invision from the bottom and gives you a little extra support (I think).

I paid for this one just because I felt it was so good and that the developers deserved to be paid for their work. I really didn't care if it said invision on the bottom or anything.

[Scottie]

The versions are slightly different... I wouldn't worry about what line it's on.

It took me several attempts (and some help) to find the right place to change the title- let me look again and see.

[Gatorhardware]

I agree about paying the developers. I only wish I could right now. I also want to add a few add-ons as well. I will get the paid version when I can. Thank you Scottie for looking that up for me. I am still looking everything over on it to see how it all works. I really like it so far.

[qwerty]

Paying just removes the name invision from the bottom and gives you a little extra support (I think).

That appears to have changed. You can pay $70 to get the board forever with one year of support, or 199 to get lifetime support. But neither of those removes the
copyright notice. You have to pay an additional 275 for that. At least that's what it says on their download page.

[Jill]

Hmm...

I truthfully don't remember which one I did, perhaps they did change it. Don't recall spending $275...but I might have!

[Gatorhardware]

It would be worth that much. But just to be safe I am burning about twenty copies of the free version on cd.