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/

[David_R]

How is this addon really helpful ? this shall help our competitors to find the top keywords/phrases for our website instead ?

[imported_silkroad]

Installed this on vb 3.6.8 and it does not display any search terms.

For example, see the top of the footer here:

http://www.unix.com/forum_index.php

Any idea why?

[Megatr0n]

Is there any point in installing this if we have vBSEO?

[imported_silkroad]

Originally Posted by maidos

on the search cloud it jsut give me the search name links that lead me to the main site, is this normal behaviour

Same problem here.

Our site has the same issues (see top of the footer):

http://www.unix.com/forum_index.php

[imported_silkroad]

Deinstalled on 3.6.8 .... did not work on our board.

[NeutralizeR]

Originally Posted by David_R

How is this addon really helpful ? this shall help our competitors to find the top keywords/phrases for our website instead ?

The tag cloud will also help your competitors to find the top content for your website if we think that way.

Originally Posted by imported_silkroad

Installed this on vb 3.6.8 and it does not display any search terms.

For example, see the top of the footer here:

http://www.unix.com/forum_index.php

Any idea why?

Not sure... Did you try searching your website with the different search terms @ Google?

Originally Posted by Megatr0n

Is there any point in installing this if we have vBSEO?

Nothing to do with vBSEO. This is just a Google Search Cloud.

[srssr]

Same problem here. Installed on 3.7 in the top of the footer and any terms I search do not show up.

http://www.dssgeeks.com/forums/

[NeutralizeR]

Originally Posted by srssr

Same problem here. Installed on 3.7 in the top of the footer and any terms I search do not show up.

http://www.dssgeeks.com/forums/

Do you have any data in the google_searches table?

[srssr]

Originally Posted by NeutralizeR

Do you have any data in the google_searches table?

This is what I got:

google_searches 50.1 KB 19.0 KB

So yes, there is some data in there.

[NeutralizeR]

Originally Posted by srssr

This is what I got:

google_searches 50.1 KB 19.0 KB

So yes, there is some data in there.

Any records in the google_searches table, "kw" column? You can check it with phpmyadmin. Try adding $vbsearchcloud to your footer template.