About seo

[sam]

is NodeBB SEO friendly? or are there any applicable solution/workaround?

I found SEO for single page apps, but I am not sure it's a good approach since I am new to Node.js and NodeBB

[julian]

Hey @sam!

I've given a non-trivial amount of thought on the subject of making NodeBB SEO friendly, and yes, given that it is a single page app, it is a little harder.

Specifically, NodeBB uses noscript tags to echo content in addition to pulling content via our templating system. You can see it when you view the source of this page.

This forum has certain pages indexed by Google, and the individual post content is searchable, so this is a success in my books.

In addition, to avoid an SEO penalty, I made sure that the content in the noscript tags matches (as much as humanly possible) the content generated by our template engine.

[julian]

For example, in this Google search, post content is searchable and indexed.

I am noticing that Google won't often index pages that are orphans (even if they are linked to from the category/topic listing). The entries that do show up are often linked from elsewhere. For example, from a different domain.

We also try to optimise use of meta tags and open graph tags.

At this point, any extra effort would not give meaningful returns.

[sam]

Hi @Julian:

Thanks for your explanation

[julian]

You're welcome!

[sam]

Just want to share this: Making AJAX Applications Crawlable.

check the Pages without hash fragments section, not sure whether it can be apply to other search engine or google only...

[sam]

A lib for it: prerender.io

[julian]

Hey @sam -- at current, NodeBB is crawlable by Google (the latest changes we've incorporated) actually show proper text.

I did look into using phantom-js to render pages specifically for the googlebot, though it seems like unnecessary overhead if our existing code is already producing good results. Of course, this is not set in stone,

Right now, we're following Discourse's lead on this issue. They rely on noscript tags just as we do, though there is definitely room for improvement.

[sam]

Hi @Julian:

Thanks for your explanation, I did try to search "NodeBB SEO" using google, and I found my post. it works like a charm!!

Indeed, there's are more important tasks to do to rather than improve SEO.

[ne1up]

^ You and me both.

[djensen47]

There's a small bug in the noscript section. The title is not included. In fact, a lot of NodeBB sites could see an improvement with the title being included in an H1 tag. The title tag is adequate but having both title and h1 is better.

[julian]

Noted, thanks @djensen47

[djensen47]

This post is deleted!

[djensen47]

@julian No problem. I really like what NodeBB and Discourse are working on. I prefer NodeBB because I'd rather manage a node.js + mongodb stack than a RoR + prostgresql stack. So I'll be chiming in with my suggestions.

[julian]

I'd rather manage a node.js + mongodb stack than a RoR + prostgresql stack

brb, tweeting this to @jeffatwood (not really...)