I hope this will be the first of a series of open discussions focusing on popular Joomla extensions.
A very smart SEO Club member ( Suchmaschinenoptimierung Joomla ) helped me brainstorm a list of things to be aware of when optimizing a site with Fireboard. I’m going to give those here and then turn if over to you guys for any other tips, tricks or problems that you have.
1) Using ‘RE:’ for All Replies
This is an example of one page with two URLs, a clear duplicate content problem:
- forums/general/form-search-not-working
- forums/general/re-form-search-not-working
Solution: go to administrator / components / com_fireboard / and on
line 1306 change DEFINE(‘_POST_RE’, ‘Re:’); to DEFINE(‘_POST_RE’, ”);
2) Posts Having Same Name
If you have two posts both titled "Welcome", you’ll one be able to see one.
Solution: Avoid Artio and SEF Advanced. Use sh404SEF and chose to insert the post ID number in the URL.
3) Spam Problems
After creating search result pages to index, Google is now indexing potential Fireboard replies, complete with a quote from a previous poster. Just click "Submit" and you’re done. This is a spammers delight.
Solution: Turn off public posting on Fireboard.
4) Site Map
It’s useful to get your forum posts included in a sitemap:
Solution: Use SEF Service Map with the Fireboard plugin. This should work for 1.0 and 1.5.
5) Known Bugs
- Pagination. Often breaks inside posts and inside categories.
- Rather than using anchors, the post ID number is inserted by modules and the search form:
- Original post: http://www.rsjoomla.com/index.php/RSform-Showcase/310-Form-using-css.html
- Reply: http://www.rsjoomla.com/index.php/RSform-Showcase/4605-ReForm-using-css.html (two problems for the price of one here)
- How URL should be: http://www.rsjoomla.com/index.php/RSform-Showcase/310-Form-using-css.html#4605
- Pagination divides posts into seperate folders. Ideally they would all appear on the same folder level:
- forum/10-computer-explodes.html
- forum/10-computer-explodes/page-2.html