Will vbulletin 4 make vBSEO obsolete ?
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They can, it's a fallacy these days that you need to change the vBulletin URL to a static looking one. The only real issue is with duplicate content pages, not the URL link itself. And in most cases a robots.txt file can solve most of that problem. Google has already said previously that your better creating another "static version" of a page for them to index, instead of altering the URL link itself of posts. As the algorithm's they use have no problem indexing dynamic URL's, and there may be parts in a Dynamic URL that their algorithm's use and are important, and should be left alone.
Fact: We can crawl dynamic URLs and interpret the different parameters. We might have problems crawling and ranking your dynamic URLs if you try to make your urls look static and in the process hide parameters which offer the Googlebot valuable information. One recommendation is to avoid reformatting a dynamic URL to make it look static. It's always advisable to use static content with static URLs as much as possible, but in cases where you decide to use dynamic content, you should give us the possibility to analyze your URL structure and not remove information by hiding parameters and making them look static.Last edited by MRGTB; Wed 17 Jun '09, 8:12pm.Comment
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I'll still suggest vbseo to my friends
vBulletin has a long way (in terms of SEO) to even think about damaging vbseoComment
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They can, it's a fallacy these days that you need to change the vBulletin URL to a static looking one. The only real issue is with duplicate content pages, not the URL link itself. And in most cases a robots.txt file can solve most of that problem. Google has already said previously that your better creating another "static version" of a page for them to index, instead of altering the URL link itself of posts. As the algorithm's they use have no problem indexing dynamic URL's, and there may be parts in a Dynamic URL that their algorithm's use and are important, and should be left alone.
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogsp...atic-urls.htmlIt's a fact that URL Rewriting done the *right way* is going to provide large SEO advantages. Granted, Google has made it a bit confusing for those researching the topic as their webmaster guidelines have jumped around over the years, and often provide contradictory information on the same page.
The right way means establishing link consensus, a concept which no other rewrite we have encountered seems to grasp. It's simple in concept (1 URL Per Resource), yet technically very difficult to achieve in complex CMS (Content Management Systems) with a lot of content. vBulletin is a great example, with vBSEO being the only premium solution available that gets it right.
Unless you are planning on getting a proven solution to do your URL rewriting, I would also recommend sticking with the dynamic URLs and hoping for the best you can do with that setup. A badly implemented URL Rewrite setup is likely to be a waste of time and possibly even bad for your SEO.
Here is a recent case of someone writing for SEOMoz who gets it really wrong, when he emphasizes the "simplicity" of do-it-yourself SEO. He gets my personal burn-before-reading recommendation:
7 Pages of Why URL Rewriting is Way Too "Dirty" for Do-It-Yourself
Google is simply not going to penalize you for making your site vastly more search friendly, by creating a 1 URL Per Resource setup, that eliminates noise content and duplicate content/paths, and provides a hierarchical structure to a site that previously lacked it.
Using vBSEO you can establish a sitemap where every page is a unique, high value page. You maximum your link value to every page, ensure that external links created by users are to a link value passing URL, etc. Crawling efficiency on vBSEO forums can easily exceed 95% boosts in efficiency, accelerating your time to index new content, and increasing the link value for every page on your website.
Google wants to know exactly which URL to access each page. They even introduced "canonization" tags as the duct tape solution. vBSEO is the only solution to give 100% real 1-URL-Per-Resource (link consensus) setup.
Robots.txt is simply too limited. It's Allow Disallow capabilities is actually more effective with vBSEO since sub-forums are actually given hierarchical structure, but it (alone) does nothing to help achieve link consensus.
Google wants to crawl every *unique* page on your site. Googlebot has no desire to crawl thousands or even millions of extra pages... wasting it's time and delaying your new content from ranking. Yet this is exactly what happens without vBSEO.
The user you quoted (MRGTB) is misinformed, but that is not a critique. It's an very complex topic, and we do not expect every user to spend time drilling down into the intricacies of advanced URL rewriting for forums.
Remember, search is broken down into the categories of crawling/indexing/ranking. We focus on each of these categories when we engineered the URL rewriting structure you get with vBSEO.
If you're not using vBSEO, then I would agree that you should stick with your dynamic URLs and hope for the best. If you're serious about maxing out your SEO, then vBulletin admins have the special advantage of having vBSEO available to them.
Forget about plain old vanilla URL Rewriting. That's not the answer. Full link consensus that maximizes link value, creates informational hierarchy, boosts crawling efficiency, and accelerates indexing, ranking, and traffic generation for new content is what you need. vBSEO includes all of this in the our premium solution.Regards,
NickComment
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As a few people here know, such as Loco M a few posts up i've ranked in the top #5 for the term "SEO" on Google so i know a little about the topic.
Without going in to all the details, no vBulletin's usage of keyword URL's won't make vBSEO obsolete.You're entire statement is so incomplete that it is false.Comment
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To be fair Nick, I don't see your quote made by vBSEO as a rebuttal at all. The quote made by Google on their own Blog is from the (horses own mouth) so to speak. And they obviously know what they are talking about seeing as it's there search engine. So I fail to see how anything vBSEO say can dispute what they say.
Granted vBSEO may know their stuff more than most, and do SEO the correct way. I won't argue about that! But that wasn't my point, my point was that Google themselves are saying you should offer another static page of the dynamic URL page (another version), and leave the dynamic URL page alone because they have no problems indexing it, and may contain important information their search engine algorithms make use off.
By the way, who added that TAG below - LOLLast edited by MRGTB; Thu 18 Jun '09, 10:39am.Comment
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Also note the irony of that Google blog post recommending not to rewrite URL's? It was written on a page with the URL's rewritten to a static html format.
Even Matt Cutts recommended on stage last week at the Google IO seminar to remove query strings and add product names. That post was a "Dummies Guide", suggesting people don't rewrite because it causes less technical problems and crawler overhead. The post wasn't directed at SEO merits or advantages.You're entire statement is so incomplete that it is false.Comment
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He linked to the article.
Even Matt Cutts recommended on stage last week at the Google IO seminar to remove query strings and add product names. That post was a "Dummies Guide", suggesting people don't rewrite because it causes less technical problems and crawler overhead. The post wasn't directed at SEO merits or advantages.
Whatever happened to you being an expert or something?
As a few people here know, such as Loco M a few posts up i've ranked in the top #5 for the term "SEO" on Google so i know a little about the topic.Regards,
NickComment
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He linked to the article, so what? Where does it suggest what he said?
So Blogger doesn't use a database and script, it's a collection of millions of HTML pages? Really?
buy=new-laptop&id=123 is a dynamic URL? You don't say.You're entire statement is so incomplete that it is false.Comment
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There are so many other little tweaks and features within vBseo that even if vB4 takes away what many consider the most visible feature of the product, it still has more than enough features to warrant future purchase. And the service they provide is excellent, too. I own three licenses now and any future vB purchases will also include a vBseo purchase.Comment
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4: If you want to serve a static URL instead of a dynamic URL you should create a static equivalent of your content.
The Source
Dynamic URLs vs. static URLs
Monday, September 22, 2008 at 3:20 PM
Chatting with webmasters often reveals widespread beliefs that might have been accurate in the past, but are not necessarily up-to-date any more. This was the case when we recently talked to a couple of friends about the structure of a URL. One friend was concerned about using dynamic URLs, since (as she told us) "search engines can't cope with these." Another friend thought that dynamic URLs weren't a problem at all for search engines and that these issues were a thing of the past. One even admitted that he never understood the fuss about dynamic URLs in comparison to static URLs. For us, that was the moment we decided to read up on the topic of dynamic and static URLs. First, let's clarify what we're talking about:
What is a static URL?
A static URL is one that does not change, so it typically does not contain any url parameters. It can look like this: http://www.example.com/archive/january.htm. You can search for static URLs on Google by typing filetype:htm in the search field. Updating these kinds of pages can be time consuming, especially if the amount of information grows quickly, since every single page has to be hard-coded. This is why webmasters who deal with large, frequently updated sites like online shops, forum communities, blogs or content management systems may use dynamic URLs.
What is a dynamic URL?
If the content of a site is stored in a database and pulled for display on pages on demand, dynamic URLs maybe used. In that case the site serves basically as a template for the content. Usually, a dynamic URL would look something like this: http://code.google.com/p/google-checkout-php-sample-code/issues/detail?id=31. You can spot dynamic URLs by looking for characters like: ? = &. Dynamic URLs have the disadvantage that different URLs can have the same content. So different users might link to URLs with different parameters which have the same content. That's one reason why webmasters sometimes want to rewrite their URLs to static ones.
Should I try to make my dynamic URLs look static?
Following are some key points you should keep in mind while dealing with dynamic URLs:- It's quite hard to correctly create and maintain rewrites that change dynamic URLs to static-looking URLs.
- It's much safer to serve us the original dynamic URL and let us handle the problem of detecting and avoiding problematic parameters.
- If you want to rewrite your URL, please remove unnecessary parameters while maintaining a dynamic-looking URL.
- If you want to serve a static URL instead of a dynamic URL you should create a static equivalent of your content.
We've come across many webmasters who, like our friend, believed that static or static-looking URLs were an advantage for indexing and ranking their sites. This is based on the presumption that search engines have issues with crawling and analyzing URLs that include session IDs or source trackers. However, as a matter of fact, we at Google have made some progress in both areas. While static URLs might have a slight advantage in terms of clickthrough rates because users can easily read the urls, the decision to use</SPAN> database-driven websites does not imply a significant disadvantage in terms of indexing and ranking. Providing search engines with dynamic URLs should be favored over hiding parameters to make them look static.
Let's now look at some of the widespread beliefs concerning dynamic URLs and correct some of the assumptions which spook webmasters.
Myth: "Dynamic URLs cannot be crawled."
Fact: We can crawl dynamic URLs and interpret the different parameters. We might have problems crawling and ranking your dynamic URLs if you try to make your urls look static and in the process hide parameters which offer the Googlebot valuable information. One recommendation is to avoid reformatting a dynamic URL to make it look static. It's always advisable to use static content with static URLs as much as possible, but in cases where you decide to use dynamic content, you should give us the possibility to analyze your URL structure and not remove information by hiding parameters and making them look static.
Myth: "Dynamic URLs are okay if you use fewer than three parameters."
Fact: There is no limit on the number of parameters, but a good rule of thumb would be to keep your URLs short (this applies to all URLs, whether static or dynamic). You may be able to remove some parameters which aren't essential for Googlebot and offer your users a nice looking dynamic URL. If you are not able to figure out which parameters to remove, we'd advise you to serve us all the parameters in your dynamic URL and our system will figure out which ones do not matter. Hiding your parameters keeps us from analyzing your URLs properly and we won't be able to recognize the parameters as such, which could cause a loss of valuable information.
Following are some questions we thought you might have at this point.
Does that mean I should avoid rewriting dynamic URLs at all?
That's our recommendation, unless your rewrites are limited to removing unnecessary parameters, or you are very diligent in removing all parameters that could cause problems. If you transform your dynamic URL to make it look static you should be aware that we might not be able to interpret the information correctly in all cases. If you want to serve a static equivalent of your site, you might want to consider transforming the underlying content by serving a replacement which is truly static. One example would be to generate files for all the paths and make them accessible somewhere on your site. However, if you're using URL rewriting (rather than making a copy of the content) to produce static-looking URLs from a dynamic site, you could be doing harm rather than good. Feel free to serve us your standard dynamic URL and we will automatically find the parameters which are unnecessary.
Can you give me an example?
If you have a dynamic URL which is in the standard format like foo?key1=value&key2=value2 we recommend that you leave the url unchanged, and Google will determine which parameters can be removed; or you could remove uncessary parameters for your users. Be careful that you only remove parameters which do not matter. Here's an example of a URL with a couple of parameters:
www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo?language=en&answer=3&sid=98971298178906&query=URL- language=en - indicates the language of the article
- answer=3 - the article has the number 3
- sid=8971298178906 - the session ID number is 8971298178906
- query=URL - the query with which the article was found is [URL]
The following are some examples of static-looking URLs which may cause more crawling problems than serving the dynamic URL without rewriting:- www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/en/3/98971298178906/URL
- www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/language=en/answer=3/
sid=98971298178906/query=URL - www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/language/en/answer/3/
sid/98971298178906/query/URL - www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/en,3,98971298178906,URL
- www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo/en/3
- www.example.com/article/bin/answer.foo?language=en&answer=3
Written by Juliane Stiller and Kaspar Szymanski, Search Quality TeamLast edited by MRGTB; Thu 18 Jun '09, 10:03pm.Comment
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There is a duplicate thread about this topic.
I don't think vbulletin will ever be any good at SEO unless they have a dedicated team on this.
I used to bi**** about Vbseo and its price. I still don't like their price but I bought it 1 1/2 months ago out of frustration and now I realized I lost more money and time for years by b*****ing about the price. I hate myself for being so cheap sometimes. It's a negative cell in me. LOL. My adsense went from $1/day to $15/day so far and traffic is going through the roof.
Anyway, it worked for me.Comment
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Watch your language please. This is not an appropriate place for it.Translations provided by Google.
Wayne Luke
The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
vBulletin 5 APIComment
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