My old website is built in good old static html and enjoys excellent ratings in major search engines through careful SEO. I am currently in the process of rewriting the whole site in XOOPS. There is a challenge here, because most major search engines with the exception of a few like Google and Hotbot, will not follow URLs with query strings. Query strings are the characters such as: ?, &, =, $, +, or % that are part of the URLs created by dynamic database-driven websites.
Much of the content within a database driven CMS like XOOPS lies behind these query strings and will not be indexed by many SEs either due to policy decisions, or technical problems to do with the spiders getting caught in loops. It is estimated from a survey by Bright Planet that there are some 5 billion pages unindexed behind query stings and passwords.
I don't see SEO with a database CMS as a problem, but a challenge that can be ovecome with some adjustment and ingenuity. Part of the answer lies with your server and part with the way scripts are designed. Many of your page links will have a url like this "http://yoursite.com/modules/wfsection/article.php?articleid=85"
or something like it carrying the offending "?" query string. This is what stops many SEs from following the link and calling the page to index.
Possible solutions.
Apache servers have a URL rewrite rule module that can convert all URLs with query strings in to SE friendly URLs by rewriting the address without these characters. This means the bots can now follow the links to all public pages of your site. In order to use this feature of the Apache Server, you must make sure that the server was installed with the mod_rewrite.o file. This is done by adding the line to the Configuration file before compiling the server.
The second part of SEO concerns the pages themselves. Now the SE can reach them, we need to present pages with metatag information that is useful and content relevant. Currently XOOPS only offers fixed "keywords" and "description" input in the admin section that populates metatags on all pages of the site. This is not recommended SEO practice as the same keyword and content tags cannot possibly describe all pages with different and various content. XOOPS does however incorporate page titles in tags which is the most important of the metatags.
While setting up WF-sections I noticed the inclusion of a 'summary' input box in each article page; not used for metatags admitedly, but it could! So, here is the big question... Is it not also possible to include a hidden 'keyword' input box and have both 'summary' and 'keywords' written into meta tags in the html just like the Title tag?
Using URL rewrite and meta tagging pages like this would have a dramatic effect on search engine optimisation and subsequent page rankings.
Some users will not find this useful or interesting, but commercial and information based sites would have a huge benifit. We all like a popular website, but we can't avoid the fact that search engine 'visibility' is an important factor in getting visitors. I would be interested if anyone has any thoughts on this.
Please note: XOOPS sites are already being indexed by the likes of GOOGLE and some other Db.friendly spiders. This post is about optimisation, maximum visibility and expanding the field of search engines indexing.
Some of my References:
http://spider-food.net/dynamic-page-optimization.htmlhttp://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/InvisibleWeb.htmlhttp://websearch.about.com/library/weekly/aa061203b.htmhttp://www.cmswatch.com/Features/TopicWatch/FeaturedTopic/?feature_id=75http://www.iismods.com/url-rewrite/examples.htmhttp://www.engelschall.com/pw/apache/rewriteguide/http://www.iismods.com/url-rewrite/index.htmRichard