Posted on: 09/08/04 12:32pm
By: Anonymous (anaon)
i have a geeklog powered site for some time now, but it looks like google and other search engines dont register my site, or index its pages. can anyone suggest something? thanks
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/08/04 02:16pm
By: NeoNecro
This could be for several reasons, but I think it is because Google & co can't find youre site. Did you submit youre site allready? Is there someone linking to youre site?
It could also be that you just aren't accepted by Google (but you really have to suck if they do that).
If youre site is new and you just submited it, than it can take a week or so before Google crawls it.
Sorry for the bad English.
grtz
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/08/04 02:38pm
By: Anonymous (a)
Try to add some meta tags, these should be added in header.thtml of the default theme.
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/08/04 02:49pm
By: NeoNecro
[QUOTE BY= a] Try to add some meta tags, these should be added in header.thtml of the default theme. [/QUOTE]
You can do that, but the mayor search engine don't make much of those tag much or I thing they even ignore them. But you could do that, there's always a chance it works.
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/08/04 02:56pm
By: beewee
Or also use the siteindex.php script (you can find it by a site search for siteindex).
BTW Google doesn't look at the metatags, only the title and the content.
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/08/04 03:10pm
By: Dirk
[QUOTE BY= anaon] i have a geeklog powered site for some time now, but it looks like google and other search engines dont register my site, or index its pages.[/QUOTE]
Have you checked your logfiles to see if Googlebot has even visited your site yet?
In my experience, Geeklog sites are indexed just fine - sometimes even better than expected.
For example, the site that I posted about
here[*1] was visited by Googlebot a mere 16 hours after that post (which means that Googlebot reads the forums, as that was the only existing link to that site at that point) and it showed up in Google search results less than 48 hours after the original post.
As the others have already pointed out, meta tags are pretty much ignored these days, although Google sometimes still uses the meta description (in fact it did for the site mentioned above).
bye, Dirk
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/08/04 04:38pm
By: Anonymous (anaon)
thank you guys.
i will try the siteindex.php and some of the suggestions you gave.
thanks again,
anaon
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/08/04 05:51pm
By: Anonymous (Guest)
The only problem is that Google links more into outdated headlines pages instead of to the individual articles...
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/09/04 01:57pm
By: Dirk
[QUOTE BY= Guest] The only problem is that Google links more into outdated headlines pages instead of to the individual articles...[/QUOTE]
To make Googlebot read the actual articles, turn the story's headline into a link (in the story template files):
<a href="{article_url}" class="non-ul">{story_title}</a>
The class is there to disable underlining of the link (put that in your style.css):
.non-ul {
text-decoration: none;
}
You could also put
H1
tags around it (Googlebot loves headlines):
<h1><a href="{article_url}" class="non-ul">{story_title}</a></h1>
And, again, some CSS to not make it stand out so much:
h1 {
font-size: 100%;
}
bye, Dirk
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/10/04 04:54am
By: Anonymous (Guest)
By saying "headlines" I meant "Intro Text".
I'm not sure, but I think you thought I only use "Intro Text" and that's why I have no links.
Well, most of my articles use a "Body Text" too, which means those articles already appear in link forms.
So I don't understand what exactly would your suggestion do?
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/10/04 06:11am
By: Anonymous (ByteEnable)
Google can index GeekLog 1.3.9 as is without modification. Other bots may need help with search engine optimization. If you have no content, bad content or a page rank of 0, no one will index your site no matter what.
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/10/04 09:41am
By: Anonymous (Guest)
The thing is I have almost every page indexed by Google, including headlines pages, submission pages, vote pages and whatnot. Just not the articles themselves.
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/10/04 01:43pm
By: Dirk
[QUOTE BY= Guest] Just not the articles themselves.[/QUOTE]
See the tip I gave above. Adding a link to the article page makes it much more likely that Googlebot will index it.
Also, switch on the URL rewriting, if possible.
bye, Dirk
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/10/04 06:36pm
By: Anonymous (Guest)
I still don't understand what it means to "add a link to the article page"?
And url rewriting doesn't work for me.
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/11/04 03:55am
By: Dirk
[QUOTE BY= Guest] I still don't understand what it means to "add a link to the article page"?[/QUOTE]
I was talking about article.php, i.e. the page where the (entire) story is displayed on its own.
The index page of a typical Geeklog site is always changing. So between the time a spider indexes that page and the time it shows up in the search engine, it usually has already changed. This can be frustrating for visitors who come searching for a particular topic that has already dropped off the front page.
With the above trick, we'll make sure spiders also find the article page (which has a static URL) and direct visitors to the content they're looking for.
This is especially useful for stories that only have an intro text, since the link to the article page is hard to find for those stories. But it also makes sense for stories with a body text, as a link that includes the story's headline is much more likely to be picked up (and indexed properly) by spiders than one that only reads "read more".
bye, Dirk
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/11/04 06:39am
By: Anonymous (Guest)
Oh..........all you meant was that instead of calling the link "Read More", it would call it by the article's name?
If so, wouldn't it look funny to people in the index pages?
As for url rewriting, I use Apache, but whenever I enable it and then try to click on an aticle I get an "Internal Server Error".
The output from my site's error log is then:
[error] [client whatever] Premature end of script headers: /mysite/cgi-bin/php
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/11/04 06:49am
By: Dirk
[QUOTE BY= Guest] Oh..........all you meant was that instead of calling the link "Read More", it would call it by the article's name?[/QUOTE]
I must be talking Chinese or something ...
Every story has a story title. See storytext.thtml - it's the {story_title} variable. My suggestions was to change that (as described above) so that it links to the article page. That is in addition to a "read more" link (which isn't even there when the story only consists of an intro text).
As I tried to explain, search engines are more likely to follow links that have some meaningful content (like, in this case, the story title).
bye, Dirk
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/11/04 07:22am
By: Anonymous (Guest)
Dirk-San, I think I got you...all you meant was there there will be two idenical links:
1) Just like always, the regular one - "Read more" (if there is a "body text", of course).
2) The new addition, which will turn the standard text titles into links. And therefore even "intro text" only articles would have a link to them!
I think I'll use it. Would you consider making it official in future versions?
And what about the url rewriting bug?
Thanks!
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/11/04 07:36am
By: Dirk
[QUOTE BY= Guest] The new addition, which will turn the standard text titles into links. And therefore even "intro text" only articles would have a link to them![/QUOTE]
Yep.
[QUOTE BY= Guest] Would you consider making it official in future versions?[/QUOTE]
Geeklog 1.3.10 will come with a new default theme that uses this.
[QUOTE BY= Guest] And what about the url rewriting bug?[/QUOTE]
Good question. Must be a server configuration problem, as it usually works with Apache.
Is this your own server? Apache 1.3 or 2?
bye, Dirk
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/11/04 07:54am
By: Anonymous (Guest)
Here's what I could find:
Server software = Apache/1.3.26
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/11/04 05:10pm
By: ekendra
:helpme:
my problem is a little different.
my site's index page is recognized by google.
none of the individual articles are indexed though.
if i apply the above fix, will that make articles that I've already posted readable by googlebot?
Is there any sort of 'archives' plug-in available?
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/11/04 05:21pm
By: Dirk
[QUOTE BY= ekendra] if i apply the above fix, will that make articles that I've already posted readable by googlebot? [/QUOTE]
Only if it visits the old pages occasionally (index.php?page=2, etc.).
[QUOTE BY= ekendra] Is there any sort of 'archives' plug-in available?[/QUOTE]
Tom Willet's site index script should help here.
bye, Dirk
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/11/04 07:24pm
By: ByteEnable
[QUOTE BY= ekendra] Is there any sort of 'archives' plug-in available?[/QUOTE]
<?php
$lib_common = '/home/ByteEnable/www/lib-common.php';
include($lib_common);
global $_TABLES, $_CONF;
//For NAV_menu
$topic = $page;
$display = '';
$display .= COM_siteHeader('menu');
$display .= COM_startBlock('FrontPage Archive');
$display .= '<BR>The FrontPage Archive only contains headlines for the past seven days.<BR>
<BR>The <A class="release-link" HREF="http://www.linuxelectrons.com/search.php">Advanced Search</A> feature can search the entire site by the dates of your choosing.<BR>';
$startDate = time() ;
$endDate = $startDate - 604800;
$dMonth = date("m",$startDate);
$dDay = date("d",$startDate);
$dYear = date("Y",$startDate);
$startDate = mktime(0,0,0,$dMonth,$dDay,$dYear);
$dMonth = date("m",$endDate);
$dDay = date("d",$endDate);
$dYear = date("Y",$endDate);
$endDate = mktime(0,0,0,$dMonth,$dDay,$dYear);
$sql = "SELECT sid,tid,title,comments,unix_timestamp(date) AS day FROM {$_TABLES['stories']} WHERE (draft_flag = 0) AND (date <= NOW()) AND (UNIX_TIMESTAMP(date) BETWEEN '$endDate' AND '$startDate') AND (perm_anon = 2) ORDER BY date desc";
$result = DB_query( $sql );
$nrows = DB_numRows( $result );
if( $nrows > 0 ) // Did I get any results?
{
$dateonly = $_CONF['dateonly']; // If date is not defined, then define it
if( empty( $dateonly ))
{
$dateonly = '%d-%b'; // fallback: day - abbrev. month name
}
$day = 'noday';
$daycheck = '';
$string = '';
for( $i = 0; $i < $nrows; $i++ )
{
$A = DB_fetchArray( $result );
$topic_anon = DB_getItem( $_TABLES['stories'], "tid='{$A['tid']}'", "sid='{$A['sid']}'");
$daycheck = strftime( "%A", $A['day'] );
if ( $day == 'noday' )
{
// Display the Day and Date header for very first Day
$NextDay = strftime( "%d%b%y", $A['day'] );
$string = '<br><b>' . $daycheck . '</b> ' . $NextDay . LB . '<HR><BR>';
$display .= $string;
$oldnews = array();
$day = $daycheck; // Next Day ?
}
if( $day == $daycheck )
{
// Copy article links into $oldnews array
$oldnews[] = '<a href="' . $_CONF['site_url']
. '/article.php?story=' . $A['sid'] . '">' . $A['title']
. '</a>';
}
if( $day != $daycheck )
{
// Display the Day and Date header
$display .= COM_makeList( $oldnews );
$NextDay = strftime( "%d%b%y", $A['day'] );
$string = '<br><b>' . $daycheck . '</b> ' . $NextDay
. LB . '<HR><BR>';
$display .= $string;
$oldnews = array();
$day = $daycheck; // Next Day ?
$oldnews[] = '<a href="' . $_CONF['site_url']
. '/article.php?story=' . $A['sid'] . '">' . $A['title']
. '</a>';
}
}
}
$display .= COM_makeList( $oldnews ); // Display the last day.
$display .= COM_endBlock();
// Get footer
$display .= COM_siteFooter(true);
// Output page
echo $display;
?>
FrontPage Archive[*2]
how to index site by google
Posted on: 09/12/04 02:56pm
By: Dirk
I've tried to summarize the above and a few other tips on "search engine optimisation" in a new FAQ entry:
Geeklog and search engines[*3]
bye, Dirk