Good one!
I think it would be super to put all such SEO things into one SEO Pack. It could contain Title/Meta generation/manuall enter for every page, some modules url hack or smth.

All in all, I think this is a very promissing module for XOOPS and should be developed to the fullest extent. I commend you on your work and hope you will continue forth with the development pace you have kept thus far.

I do have a few comment on the overall functionality of the module that I hope you will take into consideration.

* At present, it seems there is no additional weight given to keywords that are wrapped in the following HTML tags

Words wrapped in such tags should be given a higher weight as they are seen by SEs as pointers as to the content of your site and are integral in effective SEO.

* The default keyword count for each page is a bit excessive. Keyword and Description tags should contain fewer than 256 characters each. Most search engines will only consider data within these character ranges when indexing a web page.

* There should be a default blacklist included that eliminates the most common dictionary words that are likely to be tossed out by SEs or have such high SE results that it would not be benificial for the site owner to list such terms.

A good example are words like "however", "release", "document", etc. These words are so commonplace, that including them could actually do more harm than good.

Also, the lack of 2 and 3 word phrases does not help as well. More often than not, sites rank based on short phrases more often than single words.

NOTE: For anyone that thinks META tags are no longer important, take a look at the top 5 SEs and you'll be in for a rude awakening. META tags are still very much important. Google doesn't weigh them as heavily, but does still consider them.

Again, I would like to applaud you for your efforts and thank you for your dedication. I'm eagerly looking forward to future releases of this module.

P.S.
If I change the module's settings from default, I get a WSOD on my site that can only be corrected by turning on PHP Debug. Once PHP Debug is turned off, the WSOD returns. I suspect the problem is on my end as I have a customized install of XOOPS with many hacks, but it might be worth noting.

Best Regards,

James

James

Thanks for your input. I'll take on board your suggestions.

Weighting of words on tags - This can be added as an additional option for keyword generation although it will require additional parsing capabilities.

The default keyword count for each page is a bit excessive. - Erm, don't necessarily agree with this. Check out Scrub the web and use their meta tag checker. If you think the word count is too high, set the default number to a lower value in teh module config before running the update function.

There should be a default blacklist - If anyone knows where I can grab such a list, I'll happily include it. Sounds like a good idea.

Lack of 2 and 3 word phrases - I understand the point. Question is, how do you programmatically define what a 'phrase' is without the program understanding what a language grammer consists of? If someone has any ideas on how that works (or perhaps examples) I'll happily give it a go.

Well said on the keywords issue. I've had this debate before.

On the WSOD, Yep, it is probably local to you. I've checked out MetaTags on 6 different sites, no probs. If you do track down the problem, let me know if their is a workaround that I can include to prevent the problem. In the short term, try uninstalling the module, and editing the xoops_version.php fil;e to set your default values on the config items and then re-install. Does that work?

Thanks
Ashley

PS, I've copied your original mail to the MetaTags forum on Xoobs.net and posted this reply there. That way I can keep track of module development requests. If anyone does have anything to add, I'd appreciate you posting at Xoobs.net. Ta.

It would indeed, be a good idea and I agree, but unfortunately, unless the XOOPS dev team adopt this module's functionality for inclusion in the core (and I'd be happy to do that), then it is always going to be an add on. Other mod developers, have also developed their own work arounds to teh problem. Take SmartSection for instance; it provides dynamic metatag generation based on article content, but does it in its own way.

My own thought is that XOOPS core should have a metatag handler much like the notification, comment and search systems where a mod developer can write their own callback functions to hook into it. If a module doesn't want to have its own handlers, then teh default behaviour as typified in the current MetaTags could apply. MetaTags would then become a control centre for all SEO activity.

Xoops doesn't have that, which is why I wrote MetaTags.

Regards
A

If MetaTags module gets adopted in the core then there should be an option to disable it too.
I don't think MetaTags works for all modules because it generates the metatags based on the content.

For WF-Links on my website I use an extra field where link submitters can add manually specific keywords which don't have to be in the description of the link. This way you can have more specific keywords.
When having a short description MetaTags would generate only a few keywords which are probably not interesting for search engines or are not relevant to the content.

A simple utility for checking the rank of keywords in search engines is Good Keywords. Good Keywords is a free Windows software for finding the perfect set of keywords for your web pages. Knowing the right keywords to target is very important because your site should provide what people are searching for.

Davidl2

No I haven't, mainly because I thought, perhaps erroneously, that they invited one to join in. If you know differently, please point me in the right direction. I'd be happy to contribute in core dev (and not just with MetaTags.)

Regards
A

McDonald,

I agree. Any tag generating module should be able to be turned off for any given module. You can effectively do this with MetaTags now, by not including the module in the update process (and/or deleting the page from the page index.)

IF, and its a big IF, if this mod does get adopted then rest assured, I will go to great pains to ensure that it is fit for purpose.

Regards
A

Quote:

The SourceForge Forum or The Core Dev Log could be the proper place discussing core dev

I tried approaching the core team on this and offering my help but they have not replied so I think we can safely assume that this module will remain outside of the core.

See post for details

Regards
A

davidl2

Thanks for your diplomatic response. I'll await the outcome. However my offer to help still stands, and not just for MetaTags.

I've also offered to help in other areas but have met with no progress. See Affiliate Program request for help

Regards
A

akitson and all,

This is a great direction to move toward. I've noticed that not many XOOPS sites that are top ranked in SEs, possibly because this platform is still weak in terms of SEO-related tools and I totally commend your work and contribution. Thanks and keep up the great work.

One last thing, is there a SEO tool to develop backtrack URL and link exchanges for this platform? This would be nice too.