SEO Verbesserungen für Doku | Camp 2023

[contaoacademy]

Auf dem Contao Camp 2023 haben wir festgestellt, dass von Google viele Einträge in der Doku nicht entsprechend gefunden werden.

Folgende Verbesserungsvorschläge:

• Google Search Console aktivieren (bzw. wer hat Zugriff?)
• Sitemaps bei Google Search Console einreichen
• robots.txt anlegen + Sitemap einfügen
• Add select box for switching between dev and user docs #1239
• Zusätzlicher individueller Seitentitel ermöglichen (Navigationspunkt = Seitentitel) (siehe: Integrate the meta description #1197)
• Description wird nicht im Template ausgegeben (siehe PR Integrate the meta description #1197 von Janosch)
• Add the Contao.org top-navigation to the docs #1240
• Können die Anker für Google indexierbar gemacht werden? (see Add a sticky content navigation on the right side #1241 )
• Mehrfache Redirects auflösen (ohne Slash nach http nach https mit Slash am Ende)

[fiedsch]

Mehrfache Redirects auflösen (ohne Slash nach http nach https mit Slash am Ende).

Bsp.:

---Du hast die [Contao Installation](../../installation) abgeschlossen
+++Du hast die [Contao Installation](../../installation/) abgeschlossen

in der manual/guides/add-first-index-page.de.md

Ist wahrscheinlich über die Links in den *.md-Dateien zu lösen (siehe obiges Beispiel). Wenn dies als sinnvoll erachtet wird würde ich einen entsprecheden PR erstellen.

[netzarbeiter]

• Umfangreiche Seiten aufsplitten (Welche?)

Diese Frage müsstet ihr uns beantworten.

[fiedsch]

Diese Frage müsstet ihr uns beantworten.

ich denke das ist eher ein Marker für das TODO gewesen und die Frage, ob das generell befürwortet wird oder eher nicht.

In einer späteren Session haben wir noch entdeckt, daß man über das Icon links oben ein Inhaltsverzeichnis anzeigen kann. Das ist keinem der Anwesenden jemals aufgefallen und damit vielleicht ein Indiz dafür, daß man es optisch besser gestalten kann. Auch glaube @JanoschOltmanns hat noch kurz eine andre Darstellungsidee gezeigt und macht vielleicht dafür noch einen PR.

Das Aufsplittern der Seiten wäre damit wahrscheinlich hinfällig.

[netzarbeiter]

Die Grundlage für die Doku liegt im Hugo Learn Theme.

[contaoacademy]

Lange Seiten

Beispiel: Die Seite "Einstellungen" ist extrem umfangreich.
https://docs.contao.org/manual/de/system/einstellungen/

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Gut zu wissen, dass es da ist. Ich hab es allerdings heute das erste mal gesehen :-)

[fritzmg]

Zusätzlicher individueller Seitentitel ermöglichen (Navigationspunkt = Seitentitel)

That's already possible - or what exactly is meant by that?

Können die Anker für Google indexierbar gemacht werden?

What does that mean?

Mehrfache Redirects auflösen (ohne Slash nach http nach https mit Slash am Ende)

imho not relevant for SEO

[Metis77]

Können die Anker für Google indexierbar gemacht werden?

As far as I understand, google does not index hash url´s like /#localconfig.
But anchor hashes send signals to what content is important on a long one pager.

As reference I found this:
https://www.webapex.com.au/blog/does-google-index-hash-url/
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/links-crawlable

So how might this information be helpful?
Having a visible onpage anchor nav menu, would help in hinting google about the single pieces of the docu.
Google will not add links like https://docs.contao.org/manual/de/system/einstellungen/#localconfig, but might rank related search results better.

While the docu already habe a dropdown anchor nav, a persistent anchor nav would be better.
Not sure though, how to implement that in a non disturbing way.

[fritzmg]

While the docu already habe a dropdown anchor nav, a persistent anchor nav would be better.

What is a "persistent anchor nav"?

[fritzmg]

https://docs.contao.org/robots.txt is now added

[contaoacademy]

Zusätzlicher individueller Seitentitel ermöglichen

The meta-title for the browser should be able to be set custom if necessary. Currently, it looks like it is generated automatically
If that is possible, then only the question would be how that can be adjusted in the pages if necessary.

[fritzmg]

The meta-title for the browser should be able to be set custom if necessary. Currently, it looks like it is generated automatically
If that is possible, then only the question would be how that can be adjusted in the pages if necessary.

See https://github.com/contao/docs/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md#the-hugo-front-matter-variables and https://learn.netlify.app/en/cont/pages/#front-matter-configuration

title: Title in <title> (and menu if not otherwise defined)
menuTitle: Title in menu

[JanoschOltmanns]

Zusätzlicher individueller Seitentitel ermöglichen (Navigationspunkt = Seitentitel)

That's already possible - or what exactly is meant by that?

At the moment the docs have the parameters title and menuTitle (afaik as I understand https://learn.netlify.app/en/cont/pages/#front-matter-configuration). If menuTitle is available it will be used for the menu otherwise the title will be used. Furthermore the title is used for the <h1>-title in the content and the meta-title. So we can adjust the menu name - but if we want to customize the meta title and not the h1-title we have no possibility. This was the point. My PR #1202 is a suggestion how to achieve customized meta titles.

[fritzmg]

Ah I see, got it.

[Metis77]

While the docu already habe a dropdown anchor nav, a persistent anchor nav would be better.

What is a "persistent anchor nav"?

Oh sorry, I meant to say always visible and expanded.
Right now, the anchor nav is a dropdown.

So it should help, theoretically, if the anchor nav would stay open.
Maybe by integrating it into the left menu.

On the other hand, I don't think It would be "nice" to have such long anchor link menus always visible.
At least not if they are as big as for example for the settings page: https://docs.contao.org/manual/de/system/einstellungen/

[fritzmg]

Its visibility is not relevant for a crawler.

[Metis77]

True google crawler will see and understand the anchor nav, even it is collapsed.
But visibility and even size of and distance to the viewport are important adjusting screws.

However, as long as there is no better way to implement this anchor nav, this does not matter anyway.
And I have no clue, how to improve without worse drawbacks in design.

[fritzmg]

But visibility and even size of and distance to the viewport are important adjusting screws.

For what exactly? This issue is for "SEO improvements". The visibility of a menu is not relevant for that. The existence for a menu is helpful for "SEO" so that the crawler can find relevant pages more easily - but since there is a sitemap anyway, it's not hugely important.

[fritzmg]

Google Search Console aktivieren (bzw. wer hat Zugriff?)

Presumably @leofeyer has access to the contao.org property, any may be other people were granted access to the property too.

[Metis77]

For what exactly? This issue is for "SEO improvements". The visibility of a menu is not relevant for that. The existence for a menu is helpful for "SEO" so that the crawler can find relevant pages more easily - but since there is a sitemap anyway, it's not hugely important.

As far as I know, that is not exactly true.
As I was trying to point out initially in #issuecomment-1547519779 visible anchor hash links can push the ranking of the linked content.
But well, not the place to discuss how google might really handle this.
And as long as there is not better solution as now, it doesent matter anyway,

[fritzmg]

As I was trying to point out initially in #issuecomment-1547519779 visible anchor hash links can push the ranking of the linked content.

A myriad of websites have their menus behind menu buttons, especially for mobile views. I very much doubt Google would penalize that in any way.

[fritzmg]

Auf dem Contao Camp 2023 haben wir festgestellt, dass von Google viele Einträge in der Doku nicht entsprechend gefunden werden.

Please also post some examples.

[Metis77]

A myriad of websites have their menus behind menu buttons, especially for mobile views. I very much doubt Google would penalize that in any way.

Nobody was talking about a google penalty.
This is about improving the ranking of the content on long singlepages.

Maybe those people can say better, what I am failing at:
https://www.strikingly.com/content/blog/anchor-links/

Here are 5 reasons anchor links are important for enhancing your website’s search rankings.

1. They Make Your Website Content Optimized for Search Engines
   The most helpful thing that anchor links do for your web page is that they give search engines a strong confirmation regarding the content of your web page. This makes your website appear as one of the top results whenever someone searches for anything remotely related to the topic of your web [age. And if you are an SEO content writer, you surely know that this is one of the most important yet also primary goals of search engine optimization.

but this becomes now offtopic. sorry.
lets just skip it

[fritzmg]

Even their example hides the jump link menu behind a menu button on mobile.

[Metis77]

Auf dem Contao Camp 2023 haben wir festgestellt, dass von Google viele Einträge in der Doku nicht entsprechend gefunden werden.

Please also post some examples.

As far a I can recall, a google search for the email smtp setting did not show the https://docs.contao.org/ page at all on the first page. @contaoacademy do you recall, what we where searching for?

If I check now, I get correct SERPs at least for the search: "contao email smtp".
Not sure what changed ... maybe the change in the meta description @JanoschOltmanns implemented last week did change the SERPs.

Still this result is on rank 3 ... while it should be 1 or even a "Featured snippet".
And this is where visible, maybe also less anchor links could help in pushing the content in the SERPs.

[fritzmg]

Not sure what changed ... maybe the change in the meta description @JanoschOltmanns implemented last week did change the SERPs.

Likely not, since that page has no description.

[contaoacademy]

Wir haben einen Test mit FAQ gemacht:
Beispiel: Contao Wie kann ich alle Variablen meines Templates anzeigen?
https://www.google.de/search?q=contao+Wie+kann+ich+alle+Variablen+meines+Templates+anzeigen

[fritzmg]

In this case the page https://docs.contao.org/manual/de/layout/templates/php/data/ is at least missing the word "variablen".

[JanoschOltmanns]

But the exact wording is on the page https://docs.contao.org/manual/de/faq/#template:

[fritzmg]

And it is indexed by Google: https://www.google.com/search?q=Wie+kann+ich+alle+Variablen+meines+Templates+anzeigen+site%3Ahttps%3A%2F%2Fdocs.contao.org%2Fmanual%2Fde%2Ffaq%2F

[contaoacademy]

I suspect that the one line is not relevant enough for Google to display it in the search results.
Maybe we need more content or split every FAQ to a single page.

I am currently asking myself to what extent the topic should be treated further. It does tie up massive resources and currently brings too little.

I would suggest:
We define which points we can really continue to look at and fix. Then we make individual issues and assign the ticket to a person who will work on it.

If it doesn't work that way, then I would arrange a doku-call and clarify it there.

What do you think?

[Metis77]

thats a good idea.
regarding the FAQ – one task could be adding FAQPage Microdata:
https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/structured-data/faqpage.
Looks like there is none yet.
I should be able to take care of that.

[fritzmg]

If it doesn't work that way, then I would arrange a doku-call and clarify it there.

Sounds good to me :)

[leofeyer]

I have added the three sitemaps to the Google Search Console property.

[Metis77]

Just had another look and have an idea, why FAQs are not reanking.

• answers are not there, but linked (good for building internal backlinks, but not for ranking itself)
• answers are collapsed (not visible content is regareded less important - same as anchor links issue)

Wir haben einen Test mit FAQ gemacht:
Beispiel: Contao Wie kann ich alle Variablen meines Templates anzeigen?
https://www.google.de/search?q=contao+Wie+kann+ich+alle+Variablen+meines+Templates+anzeigen
Above explains well, why the FAQ page is not ranking high for that search string.

And on the linked answer on https://docs.contao.org/manual/de/layout/templates/php/data/ the keyword Variables is kompletely missing.
Instead of TEMPLATE-DATEN ANZEIGEN the headline should be something linke Template Variablen anzeigen.

If you support that idea, I could prepare an PR for improved headline and text.

[fritzmg]

Regarding the content, sure, go ahead.

answers are collapsed (not visible content is regareded less important - same as anchor links issue)

Is there any real evidence for that? Besides, we are surely not gonna change this, are we? Don't the collapsibles provide a better user experience? We could however change it to <details> in order to provide better semantics.

But this shouldn't matter at all anyway, since the FAQs are also provided a JSON-LD meta data.

[Metis77]

Regarding the content, sure, go ahead.

ok, its on my ToDo list ;)

Is there any real evidence for that?

Google search and evidence ;). I could not find any statement on that from google.
On the other hand, its a widespread opinion that content, that is below the fold and content that is collapsed initially ranks worse.

Don't the collapsibles provide a better user experience?

Yes but maybe there is a more SEO friendly way: Most FAQs that I see nowadays have the questions gathered at the top. If you click those questions you follow an anchor link down the page to where the same question is repeated with its not collapsed answer. Like its done here: https://granvogl.com/Infos
In my understanding the SEO benefits are: This way you can keep the questions / keywords close to or above the fold. Also this doubles up the keywords, making them really clear. The content is not collapsed, but way down the page.

But as long as the FAQs do not have real content, but only links to the pages withe the actual content, its hard to make them rank itself. But it helps to push the target pages (internal link building).

But this shouldn't matter at all anyway, since the FAQs are also provided a JSON-LD meta data.

JSON LD helps google to understand the content.
If there is no content other than links to the real content, I guess all those JSON LD wont be (relevant) enough to push the FAQ into the Google FAQ rich results.

All this text in short:
In my humble opinion the FAQs iteself wonts rank in Google as long as thy only contain links to the real content.
And that is totally ok.

[fritzmg]

Google search and evidence ;). I could not find any statement on that from google.

Then I would disregard that.

On the other hand, its a widespread opinion that content, that is below the fold and content that is collapsed initially ranks worse.

We won't make any changes based on opinions ;)

Yes but maybe there is a more SEO friendly way

There already is: JSON-LD

If there is no content other than links to the real content, I guess all those JSON LD wont be (relevant) enough to push the FAQ into the Google FAQ rich results.

That's a content issue though and unrelated to JSON-LD.

[ausi]

If there is no content other than links to the real content, I guess all those JSON LD wont be (relevant) enough to push the FAQ into the Google FAQ rich results.

That's a content issue though and unrelated to JSON-LD.

I also think it’s a content issue. For the mentioned example “Wie kann ich alle Variablen meines Templates anzeigen?” a better answer might look something like:
“Mit <?php $this->dumpTemplateVars() ?> kannst dir alle verfügbaren Daten eines Templates anzeigen lassen. Weitere Informationen dazu findest du unter Template-Daten anzeigen.”

[Metis77]

text change suggestion to address on SEO issue:
#1238

[contaoacademy]

Im Meeting vom 28.09.2023 haben wir besprochen, welche Punkte umgesetzt werden und welche nicht.
Die Themen, die umgesetzt werden, werden in neue Tickets überführt. Dieses Ticket wird damit geschlossen.

[contaoacademy]

Mehrfache Redirects auflösen (ohne Slash nach http nach https mit Slash am Ende).

Bsp.:

---Du hast die [Contao Installation](../../installation) abgeschlossen +++Du hast die [Contao Installation](../../installation/) abgeschlossen

in der manual/guides/add-first-index-page.de.md

Ist wahrscheinlich über die Links in den *.md-Dateien zu lösen (siehe obiges Beispiel). Wenn dies als sinnvoll erachtet wird würde ich einen entsprecheden PR erstellen.

Wie im Meeting vom 28.09.2023 beschlossen, wollen wir hier nichts zu. Wir sehen hier keine große Auswirkung für SEO, die den Aufwand rechtfertigt.