how about making the URLs search-engine friendly?

[ManoOne]

How about making the URLs indexable by google and such?

It IS possible, there are several tricks discussed about in several php forums on the net (devshed, etc.)

for example:
http://www.site.com/showthread.php?&threadid=18413

Could be written like this:
http://www.site.com/showthread/18413


... with 2 little tweaks:

1. remove showthread's extension + add a line to a .htaccess file to process showthread as a php file:

<Files showthread>
ForceType application/x-httpd-php3
</Files>

2. add some code to the showthread file:

$url_array=explode("/",$REQUEST_URI);
$threadid=$url_array[2];


... and this also works with extremely long urls like:

http://www.site.com/foo.php?action=getrestaurants&city=losangeles&max=5000

.... yes that can become:

http://www.site.com/foo/getrestaurants/losangeles/5000





I am not a super expert, but the experts should consider my suggestion... People with huge forums would benefit from being indexed...


example site: http://www.gotocity.com/ (not by me, but works that way)

These tips were proven to work, not by me :) but many are reporting miracles from doing this... Read this article: http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/tim20000526.php3

there are many other articles.



I would LOVE to see vbulletin become better at being indexed by search engines! :) I am working on applying those techniques on my own scripts and sites.

[Anime-loo]

there are hacks at vB.org that will do this, i run one right now that archives and allows you to submit that to google, anthor will use mod re-write to make the urls look like this

www.yoursite.com/forum/f1/t1

ill be installing that one soon, to see my archive click below

http://www.kousetsu.net/forums/archive/index.php

[ManoOne]

interesting!

how would you use mod re-write to do this? I saw it mentionned on several articles about this topic but nobody actually exaplined the steps.

I am tired of seeing my HUGE music community site not being seen by search engines at all! Especially since I re-did the whole site in php+mySQL (not just the forum).

Thanks for your participation int he thread :)

[The Prohacker]

Originally posted by ManoOne
interesting!

how would you use mod re-write to do this? I saw it mentionned on several articles about this topic but nobody actually exaplined the steps.

I am tired of seeing my HUGE music community site not being seen by search engines at all! Especially since I re-did the whole site in php+mySQL (not just the forum).

Thanks for your participation int he thread :)



RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule ^/f([0-9]+)/s([^/]+?)$ /forumdisplay.php?forumid=$1&s=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^/t([0-9]+)/s([^/]+?)\.html$ /showthread.php?threadid=$1&s=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^/s([^/])+?/$ /index.php?s=$1 [L]


More info about this hack:
http://www.vbulletin.org/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=18035&highlight=Search+friendly

[ManoOne]

excellent! thanks

[Thomas P]

For our board this would be extremely helpful, since we have some nice tips online, but they don't show up in search engines - only the homepage...
-Tom

[okrogius]

Actually mod_rewrite woudln't be needed. Just use an array split by / from $PATH_INFO.

[The Prohacker]

Originally posted by Codename49
Actually mod_rewrite woudln't be needed. Just use an array split by / from $PATH_INFO.


Most people don't want to edit their files, and therefore void them from priority support :D

mod_rewrite won't do that :D

[ManoOne]

DONE!

http://www.futureproducers.com

not just the forums, but also the whole site (and thats thousands of pages)

all use one script which splits the url (as mentionned above)



its pretty flexible in the way I did it, it just needs /name/value/name/value/name/value

so I can put /threadid/xxxxxx/s/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx OR /s/xxxxxxxxxxxx/threadid/xxxxxx

doesnt matter!

works like a charm! I am so happy!



I removed the .php extension on showthread, forumdisplay and index, and used .htaccess to process those as php

:D yayyyy


example: http://www.futureproducers.com/forums/showthread/s/a938a872d093ab186f67cfd7bcb17866/threadid/18436

aaahhh :)


yes i could have removed the variable names, but as I said before, I enjoy the flexibility of ordering variables as I want (so that i dont HAVE to have threadid after the first "/", etc.


me happy

[Thomas P]

Hi,

could you please enlighten us, how did you do that?

Regarding the '/': Keep in mind that slashes are interpreted as (sub)directories - the deeper something seems to be for a search engine, the more irrevelant for a search afaik.

Thanks,
-Tom


P.S.: Thanks bigtime to the ProHacker, who took the time to find out that my mod_rewrite is messed up.

[ManoOne]

It is more relevant than not being seen by search engines at all ;)

I am looking into getting rid of the s variable, because thats a HUGE string... Not sure if that variable is important, will post a thread question.



I was able to just add an include(''); line to my global.php file and VOILA (versus writing an array exploder that "looks for this or that variable".

the script takes the url string and creates an array with the variable names and their values (looks for first string after /, makes that the value name, takes the next string and assigns as the value, etc.)


... it works

[Wayne Luke]

Originally posted by The Prohacker



Most people don't want to edit their files, and therefore void them from priority support :D

mod_rewrite won't do that :D

Since this is the suggestion forum and might be put into the core of vBulletin, then how would they have to modify their files?

Mod_rewrite is just as unworkable in a cross platform product since it only works in Apache.

[okrogius]

Originally posted by wluke


Since this is the suggestion forum and might be put into the core of vBulletin, then how would they have to modify their files?

Mod_rewrite is just as unworkable in a cross platform product since it only works in Apache.

While making an array from $PATH_INFO works quite well on plenty of platforms.

[Thomas P]

Well if there's a way to get "friendlier" URLs via scripting then I'd appreciate that

[Scott MacVicar]

Changing the seperator for passed in url's, its the & in urls which isn't spidered.
So

blah.php?action=moo&test=2

wont work but

blah.php?action=moo;test=2

will work.

[James Cridland]

I don't want to mess with mod_rewrite, and, in fact, can't... it's not my server.

What I *can* mess with is my own 404 error. Most ISPs will let you re-point your own 404 page somewhere... like http://www.mediauk.com/error

Now, since you can tell what people have actually typed into their browser to bring up this error, you can use it to redirect to a page you want with a little fancy bit of PHP.

Not sure this would make the search engines do the trick... it probably won't.

[ManoOne]

The way I did it works fine, really

It is just a bit of a pain to edit all the links in the templates, such as the page navigation (page numbers) and such... So that the spiders "follow" the links.

Its nice though. Just a .htaccess file and 1 include("") line in the global.php to the script that looks for variables in the url path... voila!

[John]

Just to let you know, we've worked a bit of magic on vB3, and we've included a search engine friendly system that does not rely on mod_rewrite. It does unfortunately require Apache.

But you can find out more when we open up the beta site ;)

John

[filburt1]

Originally posted by John
Just to let you know, we've worked a bit of magic on vB3, and we've included a search engine friendly system that does not rely on mod_rewrite. It does unfortunately require Apache.

My my my, what a shame ;)

[Joe]

/me hugs John... THANK YOU! :D

[James Cridland]

Looks good... :)

[boatdesign]

Just to let you know, we've worked a bit of magic on vB3, and we've included a search engine friendly system
Excellent!

[Thomas P]

Originally posted by John
Just to let you know, we've worked a bit of magic on vB3, and we've included a search engine friendly system that does not rely on mod_rewrite. It does unfortunately require Apache.

But you can find out more when we open up the beta site ;)

John

You made my day :)

Thanks, great news,
-Tom