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.html
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/InvisibleWeb.html
http://websearch.about.com/library/weekly/aa061203b.htm
http://www.cmswatch.com/Features/TopicWatch/FeaturedTopic/?feature_id=75
http://www.iismods.com/url-rewrite/examples.htm
http://www.engelschall.com/pw/apache/rewriteguide/
http://www.iismods.com/url-rewrite/index.htm

Richard

you'll want to read this thread..

mod_rewrite and XOOPS success

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I was reading your post with interest. I also read few post likehttps://xoops.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&topic_id=13505&forum=3 andhttps://xoops.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&topic_id=9587&forum=7

but my question is that all the post related to friendly URL's but not specific to giving META information for individual modules. like description, keywords...etc.

I would like to know whether you found any more information on the SEO , maximum visibility and expanding the field of search engines indexing? the reason for which you posted this topics ?

Thanks,

This excellent. While it has been discussed a little, I feel there's so far a tad less than raving enthusiasm. Perhaps most XOOPS sites to date are non commercial based but I run all my sites which are commercial based on Xoops.
Quote:Exactly! As to the solution, someone mentioned something once about an old v1.3 module but I later found out it's a e-xoops module called meta-generator. It's supposed to generate metas based on every page's content. As far as I know, it's no longer a module but integrated into e-xoops.

I'm just a really really green PHP coder. Plus not having the privilege to witness it work first hand, I've not been able to make much sense of how to make it work in XOOPS 2 Maybe some smarter and kindly soul here will help us out.

While looking for another module I stumbled upon this one at XOOPS France's website. I have no clue about French but I used an online translator to confirm my hunch. I do believe it is a meta generator for X2 since it was found under X2 module downloads.

I have yet to upload it or know what it does exactly. Quick peeks into the code with the help of the translator has further convinced me it is a meta generator. Only... I don't understand French! I do hope someone will help us? Pretty please

Please go through this topic:

https://xoops.org/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&topic_id=11892&forum=10

French version of META module is simply useless (its a META TAG Generator for web sites and not specific for XOOPS). We will get many generator like this and people simply dont use this type of generator to get a poor ranking.

I think this is the time I have to work on the XOOPS core code to make the module compatible to accept META tags, you know the biggest problem doing any changes on core structure of XOOPS is that whenever XOOPS release new version, I have to again re-modify the changes I did in the older version... I will release this Hack here within next two days.

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Ok Thanks. That's what I wanted to know. If it's the meta-generator like the e-xoops one or just a useless meta gen.

Thanks for looking into this and don't get me wrong. I'd rather have a hack and update manually than keep losing SE rankings... but... must it be a core hack? But then again, you know what the meta generator of e-xoops was also a core hack + module until they put it into the core... Sorry just thinking out loud here.

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yeah, I have that e-xoops hack. They did a good work on it.