

Ask HN: How Google Knows That A Site is Forum? - mcbc

I want to create a forum for my community. (Actually, I own one). I have customized Wordpress CMS to act as forum. I had tried other options like phpBB &#38; then choose Wordpress because of its simplicity and SEO.<p>But, Google has not indexed my site as a forum. I mean to say it is not appearing like a forum appears in search results. (You must have noticed special formatting for forums in SERP) – it appears as a website/blog.<p>I want to know that how google detects that a website is forum. I have already emulated the wordpress to look like a forum – like threads etc.<p>do I need to use some other trick??<p>Any help will b much appreciated!<p>1&#62; the wordpress comment metadata section includes date &#38; time -and also users' names.<p>2&#62; I have already change "comment" to "reply"<p>3&#62; Using Forum in the forum's title (OK blog's title) and the domain name.<p>4&#62; removed generator tag from the head section.
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byoung2
I can't say for sure what Google is using to parse results and identify them
as a forum, but if you look at most forums, you'll find that the link
structure looks like this:

[http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-
skymiles/1096718-variou...](http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/delta-
skymiles/1096718-various-spoke-cities-double-mqm-up-50-000-bonus-miles-per-
round-trip.html)

Popular forum software will usually put a meta generator tag as well. In this
case it is <meta name="generator" content="vBulletin 3.7.6" />

And there is usually a clear hierarchy in the page and source for forum,
threads, posts, and replies whereas a regular site might just have h1, h2, and
p tags, and a blog might have blog, posts, comments, and replies.

There is likely no sure-fire way to get your site indexed a certain way, these
steps are probably a good step. If you're looking for a solid forum platform
with ease of use and good SEO, look at vBulletin (full disclosure, I work for
vBulletin)

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mcbc
Thanks. But, vBulletin is not free :( Any discount or coupon code?? lol ;)

~~~
byoung2
Even I can't get discounts on our products!

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rokhayakebe
Maybe they look at the metatags to find what software you are using. If you
are using WP they probably will categorize it as a blog.

~~~
mcbc
I had already removed the generator meta tag from the head section. After
waiting for next few months, I tweaked it again, and changed to phpBB.

:(

