Ever since 2008, Google has been figuring out which content are forum discussions, and showing the number of posts, authors, and the last post timestamp as meta information within the SERPS description. They're pretty accurate when it comes to any vBulletin forum, and even StackOverflow (which is a unique Q&A platform).

However, ever since we switched to our own in-house platform (at least, I think that's when things went sour), all of our pages are now categorized by google as Blogs instead of Discussions.

How can I force Google to understand our content??

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Dani,

I've got in touch with an SEO expert I have worked with previously, he's as good as they come and holds a clientel list with fortune 500's such as Nokia, Microsoft, Audi, BMW, Wilson and LG.

I'll forward his response to you when I get it, I know he's in the states on holiday at the moment so it might take a few days to get his response.

Michael

Member Avatar for LastMitch

However, ever since we switched to our own in-house platform (at least, I think that's when things went sour), all of our pages are now categorized by google as Blogs instead of Discussions.

@Dani

I don't think Daniweb is not consider as forum now as it used to be because the way it is structure. It's more like a web application minus apps/networking.

I haven't been on quite a while but these features you done really make people wonder how you manage to do this. You are taking some risks of doing something like this when other forums wouldn't take this approached.

It's like you are changing the way how forum looks. I feel Google is having trouble figuring out what Daniweb is? That's why Google categories Blogs instead of Discussions itself.

I really feel you done a great job. Just keep up the good work.

Nice words Mitch and yes Dani and the team have done a wonderful job - but they're still being penalised by Google as the crawler is indexing DW as a blog and not a forum - that can be quite damaging when Google users enter search terms that are questions rather than statements.

Dani is on a hunt for the best Whitehat SEO tactic that will force the Google crawler into indexing DW as a Forum.

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