SEO and embedded forum

[tonysmall]

Hi.  I embed by Nabble forum using the javascript code.  The forum seems to work great (and looks great), though I'm concerned I won't get any of the SEO benefit.

When you click on one of the topics or do anything, the url doesn't change.  So I imagine search engines won't really understand or given credit to all the unique content/pages being created.

Any ideas or thoughts?

Thanks!

Tony

[GregChapman]

Fear not! Google and other search engines should be able to spider any publicly accessible parts of your forum just as it can for your main site.

Use the following as your search terms on Google:

site:seahawk17.org.uk hull

This will find all occurrences of the word "hull" on my SeaHawk site. Now change the search to:

site:http://seahawk-forum.968426.n3.nabble.com hull

and this will show the results for the embedded forum I have there

I think the results will convince you!

[tonysmall]

Cool, thanks.  So I guess if we look at the url: http://www.seahawk17.plus.com/forum.htm#nabble-td4023997

The nabble-td part at the end is what enables google to reference an individual message thread in your domain?

Anything special you did to make that work?  Or does nabble just work that way?

[GregChapman]

tonysmall wrote

Cool, thanks.  So I guess if we look at the url: http://www.seahawk17.plus.com/forum.htm#nabble-td4023997

Oo-er! How did you get there?

Until a few weeks ago I was using the free web space that came with my then ISP, PlusNet. Since then I have changed ISPs, registered a domain and got a proper web hosting service. Hence I was directing you to seahawk17.org.uk

I guess I have a link somewhere moves you to the old site that is about to go down.

However, to answer your question...

The nabble-td part at the end is what enables google to reference an individual message thread in your domain?

I'm really not sure about that. I assumed they spider simply read the embedding code segment in the forum.htm page:

<a id="nabblelink" href="http://seahawk-forum.968426.n3.nabble.com/">SeaHawk Forum</a>
<script src="http://seahawk-forum.968426.n3.nabble.com/embed/f1595494"></script>

where the spider can read a direct URL pointing at the forum and enter that way, but equally, the spider may have gained access from www.nabble.com

Anything special you did to make that work?  Or does nabble just work that way?

Nabble just works that way. I don't even have the option at:

Options > Application > Use Google Analytics

turned on - and, obviously, neither do I have the option set on at:

Options > Application > Extras & add-ons > Content > Hide from search engines