Geeklog Forums

I just tried to export my Geeklog 1.4.1 MySQL database to Wordpress 2.7 using a script.

First of all, I have not gotten that to work yet, primarily because of the huge size of my database (8,000+ articles). But I'm still working on how to get it done.

And now for some reason on the GL site the "Directory" comes up with "No Articles" for the entire database. This happens even though the rest of the site works fine with no apparent problems and no changes. Any thoughts as to what I might have to do in order to get the directory to correctly display the content of the site again?

Thanks

Don
www.panama-guide.com

The directory shows articles in the categories. Maybe that`s one more hint. BTW: I`d not experiment with a life site.

Are you plaing to switch to wordpress? Would be ineresting to hear your comments.

Check the story and topic permissions. Or is this happening for you (as a Root user), too?

bye, Dirk

It IS showing the articles to guests if you choose a topic but not all at one glance.

All of the content and articles are present on the website and displaying normally, both for me as a root user and while logged off and while reading the site as an anonymous visitor. The content is displaying just fine in both the front page of the site (the last 100 articles posted) as well as within the individual topics or categories.

My problem lies only within the "Directory" function for the whole site. Specifically, if you click on http://www.panama-guide.com/directory.php you will see that the list comes up, but it says there are no articles in the database. It does correctly recognize the database goes back to 2004, so there's something.

Now, that's weird. While I was checking further into what the site is doing in order to more completely explain my problem, I noticed the articles are displayed correctly within each Category. For example, if I go into the "Real Estate" category and then click on the "Directory" link (http://www.panama-guide.com/directory.php/realestate) then the data displays correctly. Therefore, whatever is happening is only with the directory view for the overall site. Strange.

I need to get this fixed because I use the "Directory" function on a daily basis to produce an email newsletter to broadcast the daily content. Without the "Directory" function it's much harder to produce.

With regards to switching to WordPress - the problem I have is that my database contains almost 8,000 articles published since 2004, all in English and all about the Republic of Panama. But, if you go to Google and do a keyword search for "Panama" you'll see my site is listed on the 7th or 8th page. Individual articles are indexed very well, but the Geeklog CMS simply is not optimized for SEO, specifically with regards to internal linking. Google sees my website as 8,000 individual articles, but practically fails to recognize the fact that all of the articles are related and interconnected (they are all about Panama in one way or another.) I mean, for example this little "Info Please" article (http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107870.html) is listed on the 1st page, and I publish ten times the data about Panama on a daily basis.

I've been working with several SEO experts and consultants, and every one of them is telling me the same thing - dump Geeklog. They all concur (independently) that if I switch from Geeklog to some other SEO optimized platform then I would most likely be listed on the 1st page in Google for keyword "Panama" practically overnight. In fact, several of these SEO consultants recommended (independently) that I should switch to WordPress to obtain these desired results.

My dilemma - I'm basically "locked in" to Geeklog. In fact Geeklog is a much more powerful CMS than most basic blogging programs like WordPress, but the undeniable fact is that WordPress would be a much better option from an SEO point of view.

I've done literally everything I can think of to try to optimize Geeklog for SEO and all of my efforts have produced some improvements, but only with regards to the recognition and ranking of each and every individual article. I don't know enough programming to change the basic internal structure to optimize Geeklog for SEO. And, if guys like Dirk can't get it done then what can I do? To be clear, I really like Geeklog. I know it, I understand the way it works (pretty much) and I've got five years invested in this platform. I don't want to leave Geeklog, but at the same time I have to do something to improve my SEO performance. If not, then I'm investing a whole lot of time and effort in my website development, only to get by butt kicked by lessor sites that are more SEO friendly. In short, I'm tired of spinning my SEO wheels and I'm looking for some traction.

Right now my most current experiment involves creating a "mirror" site in WordPress. It's still a work in progress, but the starting concept involves importing all of my article data from my Geeklog site to a mirror WordPress site (http://www.panama-guide.com/wordpress). I still have not broken the code as far as importing all 8,000 articles intact to the WordPress database, but I'm getting there. Also, I have not done much of anything regarding the theme, layout, cosmetics, and presentation of the page. I'm concentrating on the data first.

What I want to do is this - continue to run Geeklog as the primary front page, and also have the WordPress site running as a secondary. I want to see if having the same data presented twice (once in Geeklog and once in Wordpress) has any kind of effect on the Google rankings or results. Eventually I might push the WordPress site out front and pull the Geeklog site back to a secondary role if I can work out all of the issues for data handling, theme, and presentation. Again, at this point I'm experimenting.

What if this works as is? What if I can run my Geeklog site up front, and if Google can read all of the WordPress data in the secondary role? If that happens, then I can have my cake and eat it too. I might figure out a way to tell Google to hit the /wordpress site from the site map. Again, still messing around.

What do I really want to see? Greatly improved internal linking and SEO optimization for Geeklog. I would like Dirk and others to make it easy for me with plugins to fix all of these SEO issues. Geeklog should be fully SEO optimized, "out of the box". It's not, quite frankly, and I've had to spend literally thousands of hours beating my head against the wall trying to force Geeklog to do what it should be doing already. In short, I'm getting tired.

Now, with all of that having been said, I still have my problem with the "Directory" function. Any ideas what changed to make this no longer work? Thanks.

Don
www.panama-guide.com

Hi Donald,

For google http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/For-Sale-By-Owner-3br-Apartment-Balboa-Ave-Investment-Property is heavier than http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/20090113154936675

and you can invite google tools in your panama-guide

• Adsense
  
• Analytics
  
• Feedburner

It's not bad for SEO.



::Ben

---

I'm available to customise your themes or plugins for your Geeklog CMS

True, good point.

Is there a way to rewrite every article in the database to change the URL's from just numbers to the title of the article? If so, that would be great. But, there's no way I could go back and rewrite 8,000 articles.

Don

And, as a matter of fact, I thought I was doing good to get the "?" out of the title of the article, as in -

http://www.panama-guide.com/article.php/20090113154936675

(Notice, no question mark.)

When I just tried to rewrite the title of this article to change the URL, the ID block limits how many characters you can use. How would I make this change if I wanted to do it for every article from now on?

Don