vBnoindex - Auto hide thin / shallow content from Google and avoid the Panda penalty!
 

Increase SEO, traffic, time on site and page views per visit!

This mod will add the meta noindex tag to threads with a word count equal or below the setting you specify.

The Theory:

If you pay any attention to Google these days you will have heard of the 'Panda' updates that were let lose at the start of 2011. In leymans terms Google believes it has come up with a better way to detect spam or content farms (this seems to include big forums with lots of content). Google has automated the detection process and every 4 weeks or so they run the system, the web is crawled and the winners get higher traffic and the losers lose upto 80% or theirs.

Although it is not known exactly how to avoid 'Panda' there are some things that most top SEO's are starting to say. The main two things seem to be thin or shallow content and low user engagement, so poor page views per visit or poor time spent per visit. The two actually come hand in hand, fix one and you fix the other.

Most vBulletin forums have tons of content, pages and pages of threads, some long, some thin. Now although not all thin pages are bad, most dont hold a user for more than a few seconds, most do not encourage a user to register or reply, they are mostly low value. If you have a high ratio of these pages, compared to quality, lengthy, high engagement pages then you will eventually be hit by panda and lose upto 80% of your traffic. So 500 thin introduction type threads can cause your 50 10,000 word PHD articles to tank in the rankings, for example.

The MOD:

This MOD lets you set a minimum thread word count, the noindex meta tag will then be placed into any thread having this many words or below, thus stopping Google from crawling the page. This will show google that all your content is lengthy and any visits from Google search to the lengthy pages still being crawled and indexed with have high engagement metrics, making you more appealing to Google's algorithm further.

It's a crude way of doing things, but the only other option to large forum owners is to rewrite 1,000's of threads or manually inspect them and block accordingly. You'd be doing so for years to come.

The Install:

1- Import the package.
2- Set min word count in options>thread display options (showthread)

What word count setting do I use?

This depends on the forum. For example I have a 20k thread forum, that had lost 80% of it's traffic overnight, since june. I started at 50 words, then 100, now upto 200 to start seeing a recovery. So i hide all threads with 200 words or less from Google. All this means is by setting this at 200 i hide enough content to swing the balance, ie; the bad now doesn't outweigh the good.

If you have 1000 threads, and just 5 are below say 1000 words, you will probably never be hit by Panda anyway, because your content is long and engages users for many minutes.

Start low and increase the setting until you see you traffic increase or recover, it sounds insane to block content to increase traffic but it is about hiding the bad that is dragging the good down. It is no longer ok to let Google decide what to rank and what to sink, they want YOU to put your best stuff in the shop windows and lock the rest in the basement, hidden from customers.

Why is this MOD for owners not hit by Panda also?

By hiding your thin content, people will not be able to find it via Google search, this means they will only find your long in depth pages when coming from Google. So yes, you may lose 5% of your visits short term (Google wont be sending much to these pages anyway) but long term your time on site and pages per visit will increase and you longer, more popular threads and thus site overall will be rewarded.

I think ive explained things as best I can. There is a linkback in the package, this MOD could save your site from extinction so its a big deal and I gotta pay the bills. If you must remove it by whatever means then go ahead but I wont be offering any support if you do.

Based on the nature of playing with Googles algorithm I will say I make no guarantees and this is at your own risk, if you are not well versed on SEO then I would avoid using this MOD or get the advice of a experienced friend.

-Hybrid

Is Compatible Vbseo?

Many keywords should be put?

I HAVE A FORUM WITH 70 THOUSAND THREADS

DEFAULT GETS 50

THANKS

Not sure i understand the keywords bit, this has nothing to do with keywords.

Yes, works fine with vbseo. I'd imagine with 70,000 threads you have lots of thin threads (no offence)

So yes, set at 50 words and see if your page views per vist/time on site improve over the next few weeks.

TBH threads with 50 words are normally pretty empty, id probably go higher.

Dave, so it just hide all thin threads. Is there way to find them on forum? Or can this mod show me list of thin threads?

This mod will add the meta noindex tag to threads with a word count equal or below the setting you specify.

That is all.

Thanks.

I leave it in 50 words for my site?

google analytics, I have much bounce

71.64%
Bounce Rate

00:02:43
Avg. Time on Site

68.02%
% New Visits



thanks

It's trial and error, i cannot say what is best for you. Every website will be different.

As I said in my article, if you dont understand what this MOD does, then its best not to use it.

spend a few weeks when I comment how will this mod

thank you very much

Sounds reasonable and promising - I'll give it a run and see if it could bring me up the ladder ;-)

Glad you find it usefull.

Installed! I tested!

Got a couple of new features to add this week.

Noindex,follow category pagination ie pages 2-xx.

Other than page 1 these do not need to be indexed.

Hi Dave,

what happens when a thread that was previously marked by the plugin grows above the min word count? The noindex meta tag is removed from it?

Is there a way to add a delay to the plugin action, so newly created threads can be indexed and just audited by the plugin, let's say, after a day?

Yes, the tag would be removed and the page indexed within the next few crawls.

The no index tag is not like robots.txt it still allows the pages to be crawled, just not indexed.

Remove the tag and Google will see when it crawls the pages as normal, and add the page back into the index.

There is no need to add any delay.

Any feature requests?

I'm thinking adding option to noindex member and album pages also.

Does this mod not counter google's terms? I understand google has it that sites which use techniques to 'hide' content are punished - and as this is 'hiding' content, these sites using it will be thusly punished.

Or, is there something I've missed?

Googles terms? What terms?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZjRGkc__FwQ

Here is a Google made video promoting the noindex tag to 'hide' any content you feel shouldnt be in Googles index.

I'm not sure you really understand. It's standard webmaster practice, nothing shady...

How about an option to include manually threads in a list so they'll not be indexed?

Maybe you're thinking of the cloaking technique?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloaking

imo this option should be included by default

also if this can be compatible w/ vaultwiki will be awesome

Interesting Dave.

A couple things that immediately come to mind:
- a feature that takes the thread out of the vbseo sitemap based on criteria
- a way to exclude threads by word count, reply count, or age (days old). For example, mark threads noindex that have < 50 words, < 1 reply, and > 356 days old.

thanks tpearl, some good points you make.

re the sitemap, i believe they should be left in.

noindex,follow = crawl the page, follow and count links, but dont index.

any links prop up other pages onsite, internal links etc.

so you still want them crawled, as you would category pagination, you just dont want these pages to be found in the serps or counted re; Panda ratios.

cheers!
Dave.

One other thing... what MOD is that you run that adds the 3 boxes to the treads, ie ask question / answer question / same problem ?

Thanks.

That's a good point too.

It's custom, but is just done with conditionals based on the prefix of the thread (how-to's do not get the 3 boxes)

There's a lot of custom coding behind the system that allows guests to actually reply or create a new thread and only post their reply after they register though.

traffic if I can I will put default recovering 500 words?

thanks

Can you explain, that doesnt make much sense.

It's compatible with VBSEO?

What word count setting do I use?

This depends on the forum. For example I have a 20k thread forum, that had lost 80% of it's traffic overnight, since june. I started at 50 words, then 100, now upto 200 to start seeing a recovery. So i hide all threads with 200 words or less from Google. All this means is by setting this at 200 i hide enough content to swing the balance, ie; the bad now doesn't outweigh the good.


As is the maximum recommended?

My traffic is up! default and now I have it in 150 words, I do well?

I dont support this if you remove attribution, sorry.

100%

Unninstal!

After I installed this mod, 40% fell into my SEO.

When did you install? Date?

Since the days of creation.

Dave,

I downloaded the mod and tbo I review all mods here if they interest me but I noticed near the top it had the <url> for Adrian's site i.e. ForumMods for reference:

Is there a reason why Adrian's URL is there instead of one of yours.. did he develop this for you and you were allowed to re-release or something along those lines? I'm just confused why that is the URL for the modification within the .xml and need some feedback on that, thanks!

He coded it for me, i own all rights, thanks.

No thank you for explaining and remember that you only thank someone if they have done something nice for you a favor perhaps and we should never make it seems like a short snide reply your trying to get by with or at least that's how it felt no matter how you meant it to be perfectly honest with you.

Waiting on Adrian to confirm other than that your good in my book ;).

Edit: Dave, in regards to your below post... no it was just so quick and short that it could have been taken as polite or rude and I've been around here long enough to see you unleash your mighty self-justified wraith upon those you feel have done you wrong on more than one occasion and normally to be honest you come across as "My way or the highway" rude so perhaps my sub-conscious said "He's being a arse again" and went into defensive mode because I'm not regarded by friends and family as a stepping stone by far... at least we are now clear on things and can move on :cool:.

Dave I want to be clear that I hold nothing against you but please realize the "Thanks" was completely and entirely out of context you cannot argue that and how you have presented yourself in the past bodes for itself, sorry if your still taking offense but sometimes there's only one way to put something which is being completely honest.

To be perfectly honest with you I was simply being polite. If you want to take offence over nothing then i think that says more about you than it does me. Jeez.

I completely disagree, it is you with the problem, you whom is making a big deal out of nothing and you who is dragging up the past when it has no relevance here and you throwing wild accusations and personal attacks around. I have done nothing towards you except say the word 'thanks'. How on earth you justify this is beyond me. It is plain to see you are simply looking for a fight. As a MOD i would seriously question your professionalism.

I think this is much to-do about nothing, please move on. TLS had a legit question- we have had coders in the past post mods they did not have rights to post so the question needed to be asked, no matter who the coder who posted it was- the question was answered, so the matter should be closed.

I think this is a pretty cool idea for a mod personally.

Just had a PM asking if this is compatible with the new vb version, to clarify, it is compatible with any vb version. Thanks.