SEO and site structure [split from: Is this forum dying?]

[Laird]

[The first twelve posts in this thread were split out of the thread Is this forum dying?. It seems worth having a thread dedicated to SEO and how we can improve it for Psience Quest, especially so as to attract new members, and especially new members looking to contribute regularly. Other than this edited-in note, I've left this post (and the other eleven) unchanged.]

This seems worth adding, re search engine visibility:

According to our two last monthly "Search performance" emails from Google (another one is due soon), we achieved the following stats for March and April:

Code:

March: 333 clicks, 6.18k impressions, 268 pages with first impressions.
April: 283 clicks, 5.29k impressions, 201 pages with first impressions.

So, it's not like we're invisible, however, aside from "psience quest" and "psiencequest", the search phrases that actually get us hits are kind of random, suggesting googlers who are interested in specific topics, not finding a place to have ongoing discussions. Here are the search phrases in the report from March with listed "Clicks" greater than zero:

Code:

Top queries               Clicks  Impressions        CTR      Position
psience quest                 95          191     49.74%          1
psiencequest                  31           39     79.49%          1
is tyler henry legit           7          190      3.68%         10.71
twosoulsonebod                 6          342      1.75%          7.16
annika and tristan             3           29     10.34%          6.9
twosoulsonebod real name       2           38      5.26%          6.89
quantum information panpsychism explained | federico faggin   
                               2           28      7.14%          5.14
how many people are in matt frasers online readings
                               2           11     18.18%           4.09
is tyler henry legitimate      2            9     22.22%          17.67
icu academy debunked           2            7     28.57%          10.71
"are survivalists unable"      2            3     66.67%          18.33
best occult books              1           53      1.89%          69.85
tyler henry legit              1           19      5.26%           9.95
is jed mckenna still alive     1           13      7.69%          11.38
mark komissarov method         1            5     20.00%          14.2
antonio urzi ufo               1            4     25.00%          38.75
mihaela istrati infovision     1            2     50.00%          17.5
laleh quinn                    1            2     50.00%          46.5
suzanne giesemann age          1            1    100.00%           5
bashar darryl anka predictions 1            1    100.00%          21

I also checked for phrases over the past year, not just in March as above, and it's a similar story.

[Laird]

(You'll probably notice that those clicks in the table don't add up to 333 as one would expect: as I understand it, none of this is particularly exact; to an extent it's just Google's estimates).

I suspect there may be something wrong with the site structure...

I'd disallow /wiki/ in the robots.txt  it's not part of the forums, it's a dead end - no way back... and it leads to lots of off site URL's... particularly all those old skeptiko staging URL's... which throws security wobblers...

There is an XML sitemap of some sort still at https://psiencequest.net/forums/sitemap-index.xml

The domain seems to redirect to */forums and defaults to the latest updated threads view... not sure of the implications

I suspect there something wrong with the site structure...

The sitemap XML seems to index some parts of the site that are disallowed in the robots.txt file?

Google search console might give some clues too?


Also think the main keyword terms used internally are a random mixture (topic, category, forum) probably just needs to be forum... if I want a forum, I put 'forum' in a search...

the forums titles if I remember were chosen by committee :-) and are terrible, as they don't focus on the best popular generic keywords people use to search for on these topics...

There is a lot of work necessary to get organic search back...

I suspect there something wrong with the site structure...

Personally, I'd replace the domain name and site name psiencequest ... it's a mouthful, science is spelt wrong, it's not going to come up in results, and doesn't incorporate the key term 'forum' and the other parts of the domain need a long hard think as to what will get on the radar psi-science-forum for instance would be far better

Personally, I'd replace the domain name and site name psiencequest ... it's a mouthful, science is spelt wrong, it's not going to come up in results, and doesn't incorporate the key term 'forum' and the other parts of the domain need a long hard think as to what will get on the radar psi-science-forum for instance would be far better

I see what you mean but there's a certain charm to Psi-ence Quest.

I also think we could spend months alone on people trying to debate a new name heh.

I see what you mean but there's a certain charm to Psi-ence Quest.

I also think we could spend months alone on people trying to debate a new name heh.

Actually I don't really like invented words or phrases like "Psi-ence Quest". I suppose I'd prefer a longer name, even though it would be less snappy.

I'm not sure if we could have TWO names pointing to the same website. We certainly would not want to drop the existing name, otherwise everyone (including me) would get confused. It would be great to have a names that spelled out what we aspire to be really about, for example:

Science and a larger reality

Science consciousness and our greater reality

Skeptiko2.0 (tongue in cheek)

BTW, I'm glad my original question has inspired so much thoughtful comment.

David

[Laird]

Max,

I appreciate you trying to help with the site structure.

Responding more specifically:

You say that the wiki is a dead end, but it does contain a "Forum" link in its left sidebar. Is that insufficient, do you think?

Yes, the Skeptiko Index staging page on the wiki has a lot of off-site links to Skeptiko using the http rather than https protocol (I seem to remember that at the time I put it together, Skeptiko wasn't using SSL). Do you see this as problematic, and, if so, why?

More generally, what problem(s) do you think that disallowing wiki links in robots.txt would solve, and how?

The XML sitemap is generated by the Google SEO plugin. It should be comprehensive for relevant board pages.

You suggest that some of the site links that it references are disallowed in robots.txt. Can you please provide some examples? Sampling URLs from the `Page indexing` › `Blocked by robots.txt` listing for PQ in Google search console, I don't see any that look like they ought to be indexed.

Yes, the site's root directory `/` redirects to `/forums`. That's by design, but perhaps we could set up a landing page instead, geared towards SEO. If you have any suggestions in this respect, then please fire away.

Yes, the board homepage at `/forums` (or `/forums/index.php`) defaults to a Latest Updated Threads view. I added that view to complement the Roundo theme's default Latest Created Threads view (for which I added that heading: the Roundo theme doesn't use one by default). It seemed to me that most of the time, a visitor will prefer the former.

It is indeed a very different homepage than that provided by the MyBB default theme, which, instead, lists the board's categories and (sub)forums. There wasn't much discussion about this difference when I floated the (ultimately accepted) idea of setting Roundo as our default theme. We can certainly have that discussion now, especially regarding SEO implications - I'm not sure about them either, but maybe, whatever they are, we could mitigate them via that landing page I suggested above.

Also think the main keyword terms used internally are a random mixture  (topic, category, forum) probably just needs to be forum... if I want a forum, I put 'forum' in a search...

Can you please share an example of where you are seeing these keywords that you think should be changed?

I seem to remember that the forum titles were mostly chosen by Doug, taking advice and suggestions from the rest of us. Can you share some examples of how you think they could be better worded using search keywords?

Regarding the site and domain name: I really like them; in fact, if it weren't for the fact that "psience" is pronounced identically to "science", and thus is too ambiguous in speech, I'd suggest that the discipline of "parapsychology" itself be renamed to "psience", especially given that there has been discussion amongst professional parapsychologists regarding the deficiencies of the current term. I am, then, not in favour of changing them, despite that a change might improve our discoverability via search engines.

Max,

I appreciate you trying to help with the site structure.

Responding more specifically:

You say that the wiki is a dead end, but it does contain a "Forum" link in its left sidebar. Is that insufficient, do you think?

Yep

Yes, the Skeptiko Index staging page on the wiki has a lot of off-site links to Skeptiko using the http rather than https protocol (I seem to remember that at the time I put it together, Skeptiko wasn't using SSL). Do you see this as problematic, and, if so, why?

Have you tried clicking through?

More generally, what problem(s) do you think that disallowing wiki links in robots.txt would solve, and how?

Links out/dead end/skeptiko links look seo spamy

The XML sitemap is generated by the Google SEO plugin. It should be comprehensive for relevant board pages.

You suggest that some of the site links that it references are disallowed in robots.txt. Can you please provide some examples? Sampling URLs from the `Page indexing` › `Blocked by robots.txt` listing for PQ in Google search console, I don't see any that look like they ought to be indexed.

Yes, the site's root directory `/` redirects to `/forums`. That's by design, but perhaps we could set up a landing page instead, geared towards SEO. If you have any suggestions in this respect, then please fire away.

The /forums redirect way in is great for us... but may not be for google SEO... I find google results tend to give higher value, to higher site directory structure, particularly the raw domain

Yes, the board homepage at `/forums` (or `/forums/index.php`) defaults to a Latest Updated Threads view. I added that view to complement the Roundo theme's default Latest Created Threads view (for which I added that heading: the Roundo theme doesn't use one by default). It seemed to me that most of the time, a visitor will prefer the former.

It is indeed a very different homepage than that provided by the MyBB default theme, which, instead, lists the board's categories and (sub)forums. There wasn't much discussion about this difference when I floated the (ultimately accepted) idea of setting Roundo as our default theme. We can certainly have that discussion now, especially regarding SEO implications - I'm not sure about them either, but maybe, whatever they are, we could mitigate them via that landing page I suggested above.


Can you please share an example of where you are seeing these keywords that you think should be changed?

It's got 'categories' above the links on the LH side landing page - they are forums from an SEO point of view . Sub-cat titles on LH pane don't say forums. One says Topics.

I seem to remember that the forum titles were mostly chosen by Doug, taking advice and suggestions from the rest of us. Can you share some examples of how you think they could be better worded using search keywords?

Just one example: keyword: 'ghosts' not in forum title 'Apparitions, Hauntings and Poltergeists' - that's a pretty big keyword. Take the landing page and search the page for ghost or ghosts (it doesn't appear) :-(. I'd also do a larger AI description of each forum, including the best keywords too.




Regarding the site and domain name: I really like them; in fact, if it weren't for the fact that "psience" is pronounced identically to "science", and thus is too ambiguous in speech, I'd suggest that the discipline of "parapsychology" itself be renamed to "psience", especially given that there has been discussion amongst professional parapsychologists regarding the deficiencies of the current term. I am, then, not in favour of changing them, despite that a change might improve our discoverability via search engines.

I'm only interested in getting more visitors/members. keywords: 'psi science' - we don't come up in Google. Even keyword: 'psience' - we don't come up on first page (bottom of page 2). 'Quest' is irrelevant, I don't know who would search using that keyword.

[Laird]

Laird: You say that the wiki is a dead end, but it does contain a "Forum" link in its left sidebar. Is that insufficient, do you think?

Max: Yep

Consider, then, that every article in the wiki's Psience News section contains multiple backlinks to the forum, via parenthesised "Discuss" links. That seems more than sufficient. Let's say that it wasn't though: what, in any case, would you see as the problem if the wiki was a dead end?

Have you tried clicking through?

I've just randomly selected a few links to click on. They all worked fine.

Links out/dead end/skeptiko links look seo spamy

OK, but are you sure that search engines actually see them as spammy? How would we know?

In any case, it would be straightforward to block that page from crawlers via robots.txt if necessary.

The /forums redirect way in is great for us... but may not be for google SEO... I find google results tend to give higher value, to higher site directory structure, particularly the raw domain

Hmm, maybe, although Google says:

Subdomains versus subdirectories

From a business point of view, do whatever makes sense for your business. For example, it might be easier to manage the site if it's segmented by subdirectories, but other times it might make sense to partition topics into subdomains, depending on your site's topic or industry.

This doesn't strictly say that subdirectory depth doesn't matter, but given what it does say, it seems unlikely that one level deep is causing a meaningful problem.

It's got 'categories' above the links on the LH side landing page - they are forums from an SEO point of view .

Oh, I see what you're saying. Well, on MyBB's terms, the forums are contained within categories. "Extended Consciousness Phenomena", for example, is the category, which contains the forums "Parapsychological Research into Psi Phenomena (ESP, PK, Remote Viewing, etc.)", "Near-Death Experiences (NDEs)", etc.

That said, I'm not averse to changing that text to "Forums" if folk think it makes more sense.

Sub-cat titles on LH pane don't say forums.

The first three forum titles under the "Psience Quest Specific" category use the word "forum" explicitly. I suppose that we could add it to other forum titles, but it's hard to see how.

One says Topics.

True, although I don't think it would make as much sense semantically to change the uses of "Topics" there ("Related Topics" and "Other Topics") to "Forums".

Just one example: keyword: 'ghosts' not in forum title 'Apparitions, Hauntings and Poltergeists' - that's a pretty big keyword. Take the landing page and search the page for ghost or ghosts (it doesn't appear) :-(.

A fair point. We could probably add it to that title - at least, in the absence of well-founded objection.

Anything else?

I'd also do a larger AI description of each forum, including the best keywords too.

You mean, larger than the existing descriptions? (I wrote earlier that the Roundo theme doesn't output them, but it turns out that that applies only to the board's homepage; on individual forums it does output them).

You're welcome to guide us as to how to apply SEO to extend and improve those descriptions.

I'm only interested in getting more visitors/members. keywords: 'psi science' - we don't come up in Google. Even keyword: 'psience' - we don't come up on first page (bottom of page 2). 'Quest' is irrelevant, I don't know who would search using that keyword.

I'm interested in getting more visitors and members too, but on that same page to which I linked above, Google says (red colouring added by me):

Keywords in the domain name or URL path

When picking the name of your site, do what's best for your business. Users will use this name to find you, so we recommend following general marketing best practices. From a ranking perspective, the keywords in the name of the domain (or URL path) alone have hardly any effect beyond appearing in breadcrumbs.

According to https://moz.com/explorer, "psi science" has a monthly volume of 20.

According to that same tool, "parapsychology forum" has a monthly volume of only one. It doesn't even seem worth optimising for that term, as I'd thought it would have been.

Even worse is "discuss parapsychology", which has too low a monthly volume to even be estimated.

Alone, "parapsychology" has a monthly volume of 4,600, and a difficulty of 58, which is "moderate". That's one candidate for us to optimise on. I'll keep on exploring to try to discover others.