Major Additions - Zoints Thread Tags - GREAT for SEO

Demo:

http://network.zoints.com/tags

If you choose to send tags to Zoints (optional) you can see what we do with them and how we send you traffic and nice inbound links: http://zoints.com

A great article on the importance of tagging can be read here.

The Zoints Thread Tags System will improve forum side search, SEO, and traffic for forums that choose to utilize it. And in my opinion, it's just plain cool

When a member creates a new thread, they can now input a series of "tags". Tags are simply keywords that describe the thread.



If you then go to your-forum.com/tags you will be presented with what is called a "tag cloud". The more times a tag is used, the larger the text grows. As you can see, the tags are also searchable.



Clicking on one of the tags in the cloud then lists all of the threads that are tagged with that particular keyword. The default option lists tags in a forumdisplay format. There is an option in the admincp to use a simple format.



Clicking on the thread title of one of the above threads then takes you to the thread. If you have the option on, the tags the thread are tagged with are also listed above the thread. Clicking one of those tags takes you to all the threads on the forum tagged with the same tag. Search engine spiders are going to have a field day with this



The thread starter and moderation staff have a slightly different view which allows for administration of tags:



The forum's tags are also searchable via the search dropdown. The advanced search option allows for a variety of additional criteria to be seached for. Your members create a whole new (and highly efficient) forum search engine!



If you have the option on in the admincp and register your forum, once every hour, your tagged threads in publically viewable forums are linked via the corresponding interest tag on the Zoints Forum Network. For example, if you go to http://zoints.com/tag/children you will see what is pictured below. Not only is this a great relevant inbound link for SEO, but you will get traffic from Zoints direct to these threads!

Another example of this in action: http://zoints.com/tag/music




The admincp options

















Official support for this modification will be at http://network.zoints.com in this forum.


Change log:
2008/06/31 - 1.2.3
* AJAX Now Compatible with 3.7
* vBulletin CSRF Protocol Compatible
2007/12/24 - 1.2.2
* Security patch

2006/10/24 - 1.2.1
* Bugfix: breaking inline moderation when tag cloud below posts
* Bugfix: ajax input not working when tag cloud below posts
* Bugfix: seo hook effective for "results as threads" option
* Bugfix: Autogenerated tags have "quot" removed
* Bugfix: Automated template edit screwing up styles
* Improved instructions for manual template edits

2006/10/19 - 1.2.0
* Option to display results as threads
* Advanced search page
* Popular tag cloud pagination
* Popular tags displayed in forums
* Option to display tags in showthread at the top/bottom
* Fix for vbadvanced products navbar links
* Other minor fixes and tweaks

2006/10/02 - 1.1.2
* Bugfix: Foreign language characters in thread description
* Bugfix: Commas showing up when removing first tag in showthread via ajax
* Removing some redundancy in the tags AJAX removal

2006/09/30 - 1.1.1
* Bugfix: Preventing all HTML from being parsed inside tag descriptions

2006/09/30 - 1.1.0
* Adding and deleting tags from showthread via AJAX
* Mass-deleting single tags from entire cloud for admins
* Automatically generate tags for older threads (with option to show or hide on main cloud)
* Automatically stripping out tiny (2 or less characters) tags

2006/09/28 - 1.0.8
* Minor bugfix

2006/09/28 - 1.0.7
* Bugfix for required tagging

2006/09/28 - 1.0.6
* Character replacements
* Tag limit per thread
* Option to require tags for a thread
* Bugfix where stopwords may not have worked properly
* Bugfix for vBSEO / main cloud not showing up

2006/09/xx - 1.0.5
* Unreleased dev build

2006/09/23 - 1.0.4
* Ability to add multiple tags via showthread.php
* Ability to exclude certain forums from utilizing tags
* Addition of custom hook for developers to change thread urls

2006/09/21 - 1.0.3
* Ability to add and remove tags from showthread.php
* Bugfix for older versions of mysql

2006/09/21 - 1.0.2
* Small bugfix

2006/09/20 - 1.0.1
* Showing tags list on showthread.php

2006/09/20 - 1.0.0
* Initial release

[Strike3ForumsMH]

Originally Posted by obmob

Thanks, i really prefer zoints to vb tags ^.^

Awesome, we love to hear that obmob. Thanks for installing.

- Reid

[SBlueman]

Ok...I have this asking these questions for about a year now....here and on zoints.com.....guess it won't hurt to try here either....

Issue #1:

Ok...so I am looking at the tags/index.php file looking for ways to edit the order posts are displayed. I want to display them in order by first post with the newest listed first. By default the threads are listed by last post. So I am looking at the code and find some places this can be edited in the file.....

This spot in the file:

		$count = $count['count'];
		$orderby = 'lastpost';
		$direction = 'DESC';

I bet if I change 'lastpost' it will pop out the results I am looking for....I just don't know what it needs to be changed to....and I am wondering if this is the file that I need to edit to display the correct post icons...

Issue #2:

What template does this page use?

http://gridironfans.com/forums/tags/index.php/49ers/

I am trying to edit it so it shows the correct post icon. What template needs to be edited?

So can anyone help with this? Thanks in advance.

****UPDATE****

I found a solution to the first Issue....

To display the tag results by date thread started simply replace all instances of 'lastpost' with 'firstpostid'. I found three instances of the code.

[chatzworld]

is there anyway i can get a tag cloud to show on a box on the left hand side of my website? I have seen this else where jsut cant find how to do it :

[Strike3ForumsMH]

Originally Posted by chatzworld

is there anyway i can get a tag cloud to show on a box on the left hand side of my website? I have seen this else where jsut cant find how to do it :

Hi chatz,

I have to imagine it was custom code as I have not seen that shared. We actually do have something like that in a version we'll release in the future. If you are handy with code, it would likely be possible to piece it together from what exists and by looking at the different templates and such, but I can't guarantee it.

- Reid

[Jah-Hools]

Originally Posted by chatzworld

is there anyway i can get a tag cloud to show on a box on the left hand side of my website? I have seen this else where jsut cant find how to do it :

Yeah I would like that very much too. I have also seen it.

And to be able to custom nominate 'top 10 tags' in a side column would be an EXCELLENT way to steer the direction of a forum and to educate newbies (and thus keep regulars happy)

Are Zoints tags going to get some love in the future? They have been neglected for FAR too long now..

[Brandon Sheley]

just wondering why we would add a thread tag mod when one is built into 3.7?

[Mark.B]

Originally Posted by Loco.M

just wondering why we would add a thread tag mod when one is built into 3.7?

It's for those of us who already had Zoints tags on 3.6 and who wish to remain on it for 3.7, instead of using the vB tagging system which is missing some important features. The AJAX on Zoints tags needed rebuilding for 3.7.

[Strike3ForumsMH]

Originally Posted by Jah-Hools

Yeah I would like that very much too. I have also seen it.

And to be able to custom nominate 'top 10 tags' in a side column would be an EXCELLENT way to steer the direction of a forum and to educate newbies (and thus keep regulars happy)

Are Zoints tags going to get some love in the future? They have been neglected for FAR too long now..

That is a cool idea Jah (the top 10 tags.) I'll tell the engineers about that.

And yes, we'll be working on an update to Thread Tags in the future. We just put out ZL which was a pretty big release and have some work to do on that, but in terms of products, Thread Tags was the next one we wanted to give some attention to in the future.

Originally Posted by Loco.M

just wondering why we would add a thread tag mod when one is built into 3.7?

Hi Loco,

For many of the reasons Mark mentioned is why you might. Now if you have vBulletin default tags and see no problem with it, then it might be the right choice for you and your forum and we understand that. But we do provide some neat things that the default tags do not (and vice versa.) From what we can tell, its a bit like Coke vs Pepsi, some prefer one and others prefer the alternative.... it just depends on your taste. We have some who really like Thread Tags and really wanted an update so we made sure we got a fix out for 3.7x with the rewritten AJAX so they could continue using it.

Also, Zoints Thread Tags are needed for users of Zoints Local 2 who use the Community Central feature.

By the way, I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. Sorry about not getting to these sooner.

- Reid

[legionofangels]

Using this thread since it has fewer responses.

But in either version 3.6 or 3.7, can we move the Tag Cloud onto the forum home below the Whats Going On Box Perhaps, and within the Show Thread Template, so the Tag Cloud is basically on every page of the forum?

Is there a section of your Tags, much like Wordpress where I can see the total list of Tags on the whole forum, and delete whatever one's I want to?

Thanks for your response Zoints team,

Patrick

[SBlueman]

What template does this page use?

http://gridironfans.com/forums/tags/index.php/49ers/

I am trying to edit it so it shows the correct post icon. What template needs to be edited?

So can anyone help with this? Thanks in advance.

Also....does anyone know how a RSS feed can be created for each topic tag?