BoardTracker Advanced Topic Tags System - v2!

BoardTracker Topic Tags Mod - ***version 2***

This easy to install mod adds a complete thread tagging and tag search system to your board. Tags are displayed with the thread, similar to the tagging and tag search often used on blogs, and link to a tag search system on your board which is powered by boardtracker. (meaning no search load on your servers!)

Tag search and tag results are fully integrated with your board, similar to our other board search mods.

Advanced tag search options include:

Search tags by user
Search tags by forum and related forums
Search by boardtracker category
Search tags on all boards in boardtracker (optional)
Restrict search by date range
Tag cloud and 'related tags' cloud on search results - fully customizable!
Mod_rewrite option for tag links
RSS feed for tag searches
Search tags on a single or multiple specific boards you define thereby allowing you to create traffic trading rings with other board owners or just within your own boards if you have more than one.
Many options to play with the in admin panel!

If your board is not yet indexed by BoardTracker, make sure to submit it!

Tags created are indexed and searchable on boardtracker search engine also and can appear in various boardtracker tag clouds bringing you more traffic!

Once you have the mod installed and your users have started tagging, you will be able to add tag clouds to any page on your board or any site with this simple bit of html or just copy paste the following onto any vb page and change the params to suit..

<!-- Tag Cloud -->
<table class="tborder" cellpadding="$stylevar[cellpadding]" cellspacing="$stylevar[cellspacing]" border="0" width="100%" align="center">
<tr>
<td class="tcat">$vbphrase[bt_tag_cloud]</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td class="alt1" align="center">
<script type="text/javascript" language=Javascript src="http://www.boardtracker.com/cloud/js/?board={$vbulletin->options['bt_tag_boardid']}&items=20&smallsize=6&bigsize=20&hot=e01010&cold=4090a0&days=90&linktype={$vbulletin->options['bt_tag_link_type']}"></script>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<!-- End Tag Cloud -->

You can see an example of the tag search on our demo forums (using tag results from another board just for example since there are no real threads/tags there)

Also see here the advanced tag search demo.

For support you can post here or on boardtracker support forums.

There is also a vb3.6 version.

:banana:

[Coast to Coast]

Release this as a Non integrated mod - or else it should be deleted. We should never install a mod that makes us dependant in another site - or help another websites SEO.

[WritersBeat]

Exactly my point.

Blah

[BoardTracker]

Originally Posted by WritersBeat

does this integrate everything with boardtracker.com?

I don't think it's fair if it does. I mean sure you made the hack and all, but I want everything to be local and help my seo rating, not someone else's.

Well first of all - you know what SEO means? Search Engine Optimization. You know what BoardTracker is? Its a Search Engine..

Secondly, tagging for seo is the wrong reason.. its like putting wheels on a car to make it look nice.. sure your car may look nicer with wheels on but thats not their primary purpose! Tagging is for organizing data, its for board users to build a folksonomy for board users. Its so they can easily find relevant threads and with the tagclouds also they can find 'hot' threads. If you provide your users with a better way to find what they want and with a way to contribute to that effort, you will have happier and more loyal users.

You worry that using this mod will send traffic to boardtracker? Where do you think traffic on boardtracker then goes? Since its a search engine for boards, the traffic goes back to the boards!

If SEO is your chief concern then you should understand that the more tags you create using this mod, the more links you will have from boardtracker to your board - this is good for your SEO! If you do it entirely internally, then what you have is a bunch of extra links on your board, pointing to other pages on your board - you already have lots of internal links, vbulletin has numerous links to threads/posts from all sorts of places within your board.. the last thing you need now for seo on your board is more links from your own board, what you need is links from other sites like boardtracker.

Look at this..

http://www.boardtracker.com/tag/music

The 'music' tag is popular on boardtracker now and appears in the tag cloud on our index AND on tag clouds on other boards who choose to display global clouds. You think those boards listed in the music tag search result don't get traffic now? I bet they do.. but don't take my word for it, here's what one board owner (whose board appears in that music tag result) had to say..

"I'm loving all of it. I've had 23 new registrations in two days."
http://forums.invisionize.com/index....&#entry1673310

Here's some more reasons for being in boardtracker and using our mods..

95 referrals from boardtracker..
http://www.redflagdeals.com/forums/m...p?userid=32220

112 referrals..
http://vbforums.com/member.php?u=61394

Originally Posted by AboveTopSecret

Release this as a Non integrated mod - or else it should be deleted. We should never install a mod that makes us dependant in another site - or help another websites SEO.

This is extremely shortsighted.. much of SEO depends on links from/to other sites. Without such links you have no SEO and you will have less traffic. Your board also depends on many things to survive and grow including links from other sites, software from other companies, hosting, servers, etc etc. Your board cannot live in a vacuum.

Also note if you look at this mod you will see that you can configure it to show only threads from your board or threads from several boards which YOU CHOOSE or it can show threads from all boards.

However a key feature of 'web2.0' is the community/social aspect, its about social search and social networks and empowering the users. The users will decide on the tags and they will be the ones using tags to find what they want. Even though a board is in itself a community, it is an isolated one and as such it risks losing members to those who are more open and connect with others and of course you obviously make it more difficult for potential new members to ever find your board if you are not part of the network.

Its important, even critical to network with other boards.. you cant lock your members in by 'hiding' threads from other boards that may interest them.. this is no way to build loyalty and activity within your board. Your members will still find them with google or yahoo, they do know the 'interweb' exists beyond your board and so its better if you are the one that provides them with the links to other relevant threads rather then them just going elsewhere to find it.

Tagging is good for boards, but tagging in isolation defeats the purpose..

[WritersBeat]

Bottom line is, I don't want to use another site to tag MY board. Sorry, if you're a search engine, do it on your own. Don't make other communities have to use your site to tag it. It's not right, it's messed up.

Tagging is meant for organization. I don't want to organize with a different URL. I like keeping things the way they are: local.

This hack should be removed if it doesn't fully integrate with your own board. It's just not a hack anymore.

You can't say tagging in isolation defeats the purpose. There are many tagging sites out there and they all point locally. They don't use another service to implement the tagging engine. All you're doing is making hacks that use your search engine to gain popularity. Thanks, but no thanks.

Release full hacks or just stop trying to promote your site in this way, it's just retarded.

[cd1986]

Actually they've got quite a good idea going...so how about a compromise. Have the mod include an internal tagging system by default, with the option to switch to BT tags. Or just include both - that's what i intend to do!

Click on a tag - new page comes up, above is the internal display (similar threads on your board etc, not relying on BT) and then below a "wider results" section including the BT display. Either display can then be switched on or off through the AdminCP.

[BoardTracker]

Originally Posted by WritersBeat

This hack should be removed if it doesn't fully integrate with your own board. It's just not a hack anymore.

To use your words, that is "retarded" - a hack/mod is to add additional functionality to the board. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean its not a hack - where is the sense in your statement??

Bottom line is, I don't want to use another site to tag MY board. Sorry, if you're a search engine, do it on your own. Don't make other communities have to use your site to tag it. It's not right, it's messed up.

Who is making anyone use this? Is there some law that says you have to use it? Where are you getting these ideas from? If you don't like it, don't use it. Thats the bottom line. Don't presume to think everyone agrees with you because they don't - some will, some wont. Some will install this mod, some wont. Thats the way it goes. Its not "messed up", its called freedom of choice - we provide one option which people are free to use or not as they choose.

Bear in mind when implementing a tag search system that this takes server resources. Anyone who runs a busy board will tell you how problematic a local search engine is which is why you will see search disabled on MANY boards. When you use our mods all the server intensive processing is done on our servers, freeing up your servers to handle the task of running the board itself. So not only do you get traffic from boardtracker, you also get servers that are more stable and can actually then handle more traffic.

You can't say tagging in isolation defeats the purpose. There are many tagging sites out there and they all point locally. They don't use another service to implement the tagging engine.

They certainly don't all point locally. A vast number of blogs and other sites out there link to tag search on technorati, del.icio.us, flickr etc etc. Those that keep everything local are missing out on the benefits of the global aspects of tagging. How will anyone outside ever find tagged content if they are only internal and isolated from the world?

Release full hacks or just stop trying to promote your site in this way, it's just retarded.

Please stop telling others not to release hacks that they put the time and effort into developing just because you don't like them. If you dont like it, don't use it or go and develop your own mods. Your statements here are quite absurd.

[WritersBeat]

What's absurd is you not adding the option to integrate it with the owner's site.

I don't give a shit about resources, if I'm having a tagging system with members tagging all the content, I don't want to give traffic to another site. Sorry, no free advertising.

[Cloud-Warrior]

Installed on www.boards.ie.

I don't see what the problem is, because:

1) The tags are stored locally, in your thread table. You can still access and do whatever extra stats / linking you want with this...
2) BoardTracker provides a mechanism to add your site to their tagged threads search, which I think is a great example of Web 2.0 being applied for the first time to forums. Tagging threads across forum sites - brilliant!

[jeffj]

does this mod supply user entered tags to google ad sense to help target their ads on your pages... if you're using google adsense???

this is very important to me - otherwise you're not exploiting the tagging work done by your users.

???

[jeffj]

Originally Posted by Cloud-Warrior

Installed on www.boards.ie.

I don't see what the problem is, because:

1) The tags are stored locally, in your thread table. You can still access and do whatever extra stats / linking you want with this...
2) BoardTracker provides a mechanism to add your site to their tagged threads search, which I think is a great example of Web 2.0 being applied for the first time to forums. Tagging threads across forum sites - brilliant!

I visited this forum. I noticed you installed the friends mod but you're displaying the friends links on profile that don't even have friends and allowing a click through to a blank page. you might consider correcting this - if it's blank because I'm not a registered user, then that's a great opportunity to display a message inviting someone to join and avail themselves of this great feature.