Help FORUM ( User generated content ) SEO best practices
-
Hello Moz folks !
For the very first time im dealing with a massive community who rely on UGC ( user generated content ). Their forum is finding a great deal of duplicate content/broken link/ duplicate title and on-site issue. I have Advance SEO knowledge related to ecommerce or blogging but new to forum and UGC.
I would really love to learn or get ressources links that would allow me to see/understand the best practices in term of SEO. Any help is greatly appreciated.
Best,
Yan
-
do logged in-user and anonymous user should have the same behavior ?
For the most part, yes, however it depends on the forum you are running. The important piece to understand is that whatever is hidden behind a login wall, remains hidden to the search engines. So, you have to weigh that factor when deciding which content to display to everyone versus the content to display to only logged in users.
How do you suggest handling canonical in a UGC world ?
Canonicalization isn't too hard to manage. Your forum software should include canonical URLs, but if not you will want those implemented into the template as soon as possible. The use of the rel=prev and rel=next tags are highly recommended. This allows you to keep the main forum thread as the canonical URL and Google understands that the subsequent pages are related to the main page and how they add value.
Do you have specific editorial guidelines enforced on UGC ?
Again, that's up to you and your community. What work editorially for one forum may not be the most desirable for another (e.g. the use of profanity). As long as the content being added is of value, then I consider it good content. With forums, you can be a lot more loose with the guidelines and allow users to interact as they desire.
Don't let your forum become infested with Spam, obvious self-promoting threads, and make sure all links are nofollow. Many forums implement restrictions on users in regards to links and only when they prove themselves can they add links to their posts. Link and Spam management are very important for forums.
-
Thanks Ray-PP,
Is there any specific ? Exemple , do logged in-user and anonymous user should have the same behavior ? How do you suggest handling canonical in a UGC world ? Do you have specific editorial guidelines enforced on UGC ? Exemple should we noindex a post with a 3 word question and an image ?
Cheers,
Yan
-
Hello Yan,
Fortunately, the on-site SEO for UGC is not very different from the on-site SEO of other forms of content. We can still apply those best-practices to the forums and UGC you're experiencing in forums.
Duplicate content / on-page factors
- Make sure the forum is using proper canonicalization
- use of rel=prev/next for paginated threads
- Semantic SEO where appropriate
- Make sure to have all on-page SEO factors optimized (title, headings, images optimized, ect)
Broken links
- Use Moz or a tool like Screaming Frog SEO Spider to identify 404 pages. Redirect any important pages with a 301 to its nearest related page (save SEO authority for the important dead pages).
Are there more specific issues you are experiencing with the forum?
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What is the best SEO way to categorize products on an ecommerce site
What is the best way for SEO to set up categories for an ecommerce site selling beauty products. I have currently built my product categories so that if a person looks under the hydration category they find our body lotion, but also if they look under the body section of products they also will find the same body lotion. Is this a problem for SEO? I think it helps the customer find the product.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kuhliff0 -
Best practice to redirect all 404s?
Hey is it best practice to redirect all 404 pages. For example if the 404 pages had 0 traffic and no links why would you need to redirect that page? Isn't it best practice just to leave as a 404? Cheers.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | kayl870 -
Whats the best practice for acquisition?
Hi, My company have just bought out a competitor. We wan't to dissolve their website and if possible steal some of their link juice. The site hasn't got any spammy links or 404's so i'm not worried in that department. What I am not sure about is which of the following is best practice? a. Redirect every single page (even pages like /?checkout) to a relevant page on our website. b. Only redirect important pages, category pages, contact pages etc and leave the other pages to 404? c. Redirect the important pages to a relevant URL and redirect the less important pages to our homepage. d. Redirect the entire domain to our home page (i assume this isn't a good idea) e. Don't redirect any of the pages just delete the site.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DannyHoodless0 -
Content Help for Dealers
What type of content would anyone recommend writing for power sports dealers (ATV dealers, Motorcycle Dealers, Jet Ski Dealers, etc) or outdoor power equipment dealers (tractors, lawn mowers, etc) when they're website consists mainly of inventory pages? These dealers are trying to improve brand awareness, but creating content that answers searchers' questions/intent is tough and I want to make sure I am on the right track. I'm trying to create unique content. I am optimizing existing pages and then so far I've been writing brand pages, describing the brands, advertising that they carry this brand, creating links and call-to-actions to the inventory pages,etc. I want to first create authority and crawlable content for this brand. From there, I have been trying to create product category pages, describing the top products under that brand and working to creating product comparison content instead of simply describing it. Why Buy type of stuff, but that gets tricky to make unique. Any suggestions on unique content or better strategies versus just brand descriptions, product descriptions/comparisons, etc? I also want to make sure that creating multiple pages focused on one brand and an overall category isn't cannibalization of a topic. Obviously each page is slightly different and gradually going into more detail, but I want to make sure. Any recommendations on types of content or different strategies would be helpful! Also - I should mention that I am limited by the platform. I cannot create/utilize a blog page or anything like that. Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Crichardson19900 -
Reviews and Other Content in Tabs and SEO
Hello, We are redesigning our product page and have considered putting our customer reviews in a 'tab' on the page, so it is not visible to the user until they click on the tab. Are there any SEO implications of this? Right now, we do have problems with this because we use a third party tool for our reviews and they are in javascript, so they do not get crawled, but going forward we will be using our native platform. We want the text of the reviews to get crawled and indexed. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Colbys0 -
Social Buttons Help SEO, 2 Questions...
Howdy Guys, I noticed a weird thing over the weekend - our main keyword has been hit pretty hard by penguin and we had dropped down to #79. On Friday I decided to change some on-page optimisation and changed the title tag and some tags. When I've ran my rank tracker this morning we have jumped up to #62... Has anyone else noticed just a simple change boosts rankings? Second Questions We took all our social buttons off the website back in January as no-body was using them but from a few recent reports I've seen having the buttons on the site help organic rankings... Is this true? Scott
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ScottBaxterWW0 -
There's a website I'm working with that has a .php extension. All the pages do. What's the best practice to remove the .php extension across all pages?
Client wishes to drop the .php extension on all their pages (they've got around 2k pages). I assured them that wasn't necessary. However, in the event that I do end up doing this what's the best practices way (and easiest way) to do this? This is also a WordPress site. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digisavvy0 -
Are there certain times of the day that it is better to update content or blogs? How do I find out what time is best for a particular site?
Trying to figure out how to best optimize timing of new content... including blogs and other on page content?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AaronSchinke0