You may have seen the following from "HTML Improvements" in the Search Console for Google Webmasters tool.
1. Duplicate meta descriptions
2. Short meta descriptions
3. Duplicate title tags
Most (if not all) of them pertain to the User Profile page. By default, vB5 only uses "User Profile" as the page title and meta description. Since each forum member has its own user profile page, all of those pages have the same title and description which is not good for SEO.
To fix this issue, it will require editing the "header" template in Style Manager in AdminCP.
Insert this code at the top of the header template:
The page ID, which is 8 in the code above and is the default page ID in a fresh vB5 installation, is the page id for the User Profile page. It may be different on your forum. To find it, go to any user profile page and then view the the HTML source by right-clicking on an empty space and choosing "View page source" (or equivalent). Search for "pageid" and you will see the corresponding id for your forum. Use that and replace the number 8 in the code.
You may also want to change the text I used. For page title I used:
For meta description, I used:
Change the text accordingly to fit your forum.
Version History:
v1.2
NOTES:
1. Duplicate meta descriptions
2. Short meta descriptions
3. Duplicate title tags
Most (if not all) of them pertain to the User Profile page. By default, vB5 only uses "User Profile" as the page title and meta description. Since each forum member has its own user profile page, all of those pages have the same title and description which is not good for SEO.
To fix this issue, it will require editing the "header" template in Style Manager in AdminCP.
Insert this code at the top of the header template:
Code:
<vb:if condition="isset($page['pageid']) AND $page['pageid'] == 8"> {vb:set profile_title, 'User Profile for '} {vb:strcat profile_title, {vb:var page.username}} {vb:set page.title, {vb:raw profile_title}} {vb:set profile_desc, {vb:var page.username}} {vb:strcat profile_desc, ' is a member of vBMods.rocks community. Visit their profile for more details on their activities, basic information and more.'} {vb:set page.metadescription, {vb:raw profile_desc}} </vb:if>
You may also want to change the text I used. For page title I used:
Code:
User Profile for [username]
Code:
[username] is a member of vBMods.rocks community. Visit their profile for more details on their activities, basic information and more.
Version History:
v1.2
- Updated template code to fix possible "Undefined array key 'pageid'" PHP error in some cases.
- Updated instructions for latest vB5 version 5.6.x. The template changes are much simpler.
- Initial version
NOTES:
- If you have the old changes (v1.0), you need to revert them first before applying the new ones. But if you have other edits to the header template other than this one, you will have to re-apply them too because reverting the template will revert all the custom changes.
- Since this edits an existing vB template, these changes may introduce template merge conflicts every time you upgrade. You need to resolve those conflicts in AdminCP after upgrading.
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