Integration with vBulletin - vB Google Search Cloud - SEO

Simple Search Cloud Script by Dan Fletcher
vBulletin Integration by NeutralizeR

vB Google Search Cloud

Simple Search Cloud


A search cloud is like a tag cloud, that you find on blogs- except instead of showing a cloud of tags, it shows a cloud of search terms used to access the site.

It shows different searches visitors have used to get to your website. The more people that searched for a particular term- the bigger that term will appear in the cloud.

This script is easy to install, particularly if you have a PHP based website (like a blog, a script, a forum, etc).

It will increase your page views (because it encourages customers to explore more), and is also great for SEO.

More about search clouds...

One of the best ways to get targeted traffic to your website is through the search engines. And how much traffic you get will be based on how high you appear in the search engine rankings. So it is important to spend some of your marketing time trying to improve your search engine rankings. There are many ways to do this, but the two main ways are changing the text on your website, and increasing the links to your website.

You also need to look at the actual links on your website- make sure you link to your important pages, and use good anchor text (which is the text that your link appears as, eg a link to bluewidgets.com might appear as "blue widgets", so "blue widgets is the anchor text"). A great way to optimize your internal links is to use a "search cloud". A search cloud appears on your website (often on the side), and is a large list of words. Each word is a link, and they are all different sizes. Each word is something that someone searched for when they came to your website. If a lot of people search for a certain word, then that word will appear bigger in the cloud.

Search clouds help with your search engine rankings, because they ensure that you have internal links with the anchor text that people are actually searching for. Often people will guess what anchor text they should use- but they often get it wrong. A search cloud solves this problem- because it?s based on live results based on what people actually searched for. Lets say that you get some traffic for the search phrase "blue widgets". If someone visits your site after searching for "blue widgets", then the search cloud will now show "blue widgets", with a link to the relevant page. Now you have extra links to "blue widgets", you are more likely to rank higher for that term.

There are other benefits to search clouds as well. They can help lead your customers to your more important pages. If someone searches for "red widget", and then sees that the biggest phrase in your search cloud is for "blue widgets", they instantly know that your site is popular for blue widgets, and may go and visit the page. Search clouds also encourage visitors to explore your, which will help increase the average page views per visitor. This can mean more income, whether it?s in the form of extra sales, or more revenue from advertising. You can usually add a search cloud quite easily to your website.

Dan Fletcher

vBulletin Integration

Shorthly, vB Google Search Cloud product will fully integrate Simple Search Cloud script with your forum.
The default script didn't work for me so i changed some variables and added a function to display the hits of each search term + make-up for vBulletin.

Installation Instructions

1-) Upload search_cloud.php to your forum root.
2-) Import the product-vbgooglesearchcloud.xml.
3-) Put $searchcloud in any template you want to display your search cloud. e.g. footer

Upgrade Instructions

- (This step is for v1.0.3 only - Uninstall vB Google Search Cloud product.)

- Overwrite search_cloud.php with the new one.
- Import product-vbgooglesearchcloud.xml.

Optional

Open search_cloud.php and change these lines if needed:

PHP Code:

    // Variables you can set (if you want), but the defaults are fine.

    var $m_minFont     = 75;   // The minimum font size. No keywords will be smaller than this. This is a %
    var $m_maxFont     = 150;  // The maximum font size. No keywords will be bigger than this. This is a %
    var $m_averageFont = 100;   // The font size of an average searhced for keyword. This is a %
    var $m_maxEntries  = 100;   // Maximum number of entries displayed in the cloud
    var $m_showCount   = 0;    // Whether counts are shown along with each entry

    var $m_blackList   = array();   // list of disallowed words. An example is commented out below...
    //var $m_blackList   = array("sex","boob","cheatz"); 


Template
If you want to change something in the template > Search Templates > searchcloud


vBadvanced CMPS Integration

vBa CMPS > Add Module > Template Module

Module Title: Search Cloud
Template to Include: adv_portal_searchcloud
Template Content:

<tr>
<td class="$bgclass" style="text-align:justify">
$vbsearchcloud
</td>
</tr>

Use Module Wrapper Template: Yes

Open vBadvanced Main Options and add vbsearchcloud to Portal Output Global Variables box.

Versions
v1.0.0 - May 10 2008
-First release
v1.0.1 - May 10 2008
-Fixed uncached template bug
v1.0.2 - May 15 2008
-Fixed security issue
-Added option to disable/enable hit counts
-Added blacklist option to disallow specific words
v1.0.3 - May 15 2008
-Changed mySQL variables so you don't have to enter the db details
v1.0.4 - May 16 2008
-Fixed bug: hit counts don't work
v1.0.5 - May 19 2008
-Added PHP 4 compatibility
-Small template changes

Demo
http://www.msxlabs.org/forum/

[mnms]

Hi
I installed the mod in VB 4.1.6.
But the content of the variable $vbsearchcloud doesn't appear in my side bar
Does anybody know if I have to change something ?

(results are well inserted inside the Mysql table)

[mnms]

My issue is not solved but I discovered an issue in the product script seach_cloud.php.
I solved it by making change in seach_cloud.php.
Explanation :
In my case (french web site), Latin characters are used and google convert them into hexadecimal.
So the script gave me the error message "duplicate entry error" with the number 1062.
So I added a conversion function.
Let me know in MP if you need my script version.

[Dr.CustUmz]

i know this is old, but being on the 3x series still i am intrigued with this mod. i have installed this with no errors, applied the

global $vbulletin;

fix i saw in one of these posts, and have done a search on google for my website and followed it, yet i am not seeing any results in the search cloud box =(

i am running vb 388 and php 5.4.16, i checked my DB the table created ok. yet i am seeing no results, any one have this working? or know a easy fix?