Help with forums optimization

[krazy]

Hello,

We've had our forums online for about 5 years now and it's a website for a hip-hop group, our forums are the largest (24k members) and most updated site for this group on the internet, they don't even have an official updated website of their own..so ours is the most "official" thing out there right now, all the people affiliated with the group are registered on our site.

But I don't understand why our first link on google shows up on the 8th page when you search under the groups name, can someone tell me what I can do to improve this, what are we doing wrong?

It seems like after five years we would automatically be close to the front page on google...any help is appreciated.

Here is the site

http://www.btnhboard.com

thanks!

[krazy]

hmm, anyone?

[ForgottenCreature]

Well, after viewing your forums, I've noticed that a ton of the content is unavailable to guests & search bots, how do you expect to rank well on search engines when your content is blocked?

[Silkjaer]

Yes, the least you could do is make it readable to all :)

[krazy]

Okay, that was two months ago and since then the forum has been open to everyone. My google standings have improved somewhat, but not where I want them.

My site is the #1 source and site for this group so I expect my site to be at least on the first page when someone runs a search under their name...any other suggestions?

[amitpatel_3001]

Its a good forum, but i personally feel the header images files should be reduced for fast laoding and also check out SEO for Vbulletin (http://www.seomeeting.com/seo-for-vbulletin-vf8.html)
wow the stats are cool :)
Members: 25,545
Threads: 38,680
Posts: 569,695
Good Luck with your forum its a cool one.

[krazy]

Hey thanks, I'll check out the link you provided.