First of all: Pardon my bad english. :)
I open this topic coz I want to read other experience about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) with Xoops, and Xoops modules.
My experience is like this:
I'm running a bunch of sites, so some of them I optimize for search engines (Google
), some not (depends of client's needs). I realize that the most of Xoops modules and themes are not SEO out-of-the box.
Themes:
First of all, the most themes have problem with Heading tags such as <h1..4>. The key is to have only one <h1> tag on the page and it must be before <h2> tag. Also, img alt="" tag is missing in most cases and image width and height tag.
Modules:
There are very little modules that are SEO ready. What I mean by SEO?
Title of the page - Yes, you could change it in theme, but: Depends of what you want to put in a first plan, my personal experience (that works) is to put a title of the eg. article first, then sub/category then the title of the website.
Example: SEO tools for XOOPS | Xoops tips'n'tricks | MyXoopsSEO.com
It's far better then eg:
MyXoopsSEO.com | Xoops tips'n'tricks | SEO tools for XOOPS
Meta description tags - There was an issue with AMS3 and meta description tags. Yes, they are relevant. Google reads them till it analize the whole page. So every module should have unique meta description tags for every single page that it generates with an option to enter your own description.
Some of this could be (unique meta desc.) dine in theme adding title of the page before xoops default meta description, but it's the second best thing. :)
Links in modules - Rarely there are title="" tags on links in modules and it's templates. This is also a must. in title tag should be a name of article or first characters xxx of the articles. That's why the news module is so good. Without many SEO features, this one is good job.
URL rewrite aka clean url aka SEF - There are modules with this option, but the main problem is that you get something like this:
category.item.232/the-article-name.html
It's more SEO friendly to have name-of-the-category/the-article-name.html
or just: www.website.com/the-article-name.html
There is an argue that SEF urls are not relevant for seo. It's true, they are not SO relevant, but every keyword more is relevant, and I'm telling you this from my personal experience.
RSS and sitemap - Every module should have rss or a plugin for rss module. This is because you can submit you rss feed as sitemap in google webmasters tools. Also, we need a good sitemap module. We have one, it's nice, but it should be upgraded.
There is a lot more about XOOPS and SEO, but this is a MUST before any keyword stiffing and other more advanced techniques.
I use that every module and theme developer/designer should be considerate this when making it's product. I repeat that this is my presonal experience that is proven in practice.
Now, let me hear you experience. We are all here to learn. :)