Taking away the number in the urls?

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  • Lingo
    New Member
    • Nov 2017
    • 23
    • 5.3.x

    Taking away the number in the urls?

    Hi,

    I just set up the forum on my website, and I'd like to know if it is possible to make the url withouth the numbers, for instance the following url has the number "55", is it possible to avoid this by default for all the urls that'l be created?
  • Mark.B
    vBulletin Support
    • Feb 2004
    • 24286
    • 6.0.X

    #2
    Originally posted by Lingo
    Hi,

    I just set up the forum on my website, and I'd like to know if it is possible to make the url withouth the numbers, for instance the following url has the number "55", is it possible to avoid this by default for all the urls that'l be created?
    This isn't possible, there is no way to change the URL structures in vB5.
    MARK.B
    vBulletin Support
    ------------
    My Unofficial vBulletin 6.0.0 Demo: https://www.talknewsuk.com
    My Unofficial vBulletin Cloud Demo: https://www.adminammo.com

    Comment

    • Wayne Luke
      vBulletin Technical Support Lead
      • Aug 2000
      • 73976

      #3
      The number or node id is the only unique identifier for any topic. There is nothing in the system preventing multiple topics in the same channel from having the exact same title. Without the node id of the topic starter, there is no way for the system to find the proper topic and display it.
      Translations provided by Google.

      Wayne Luke
      The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
      vBulletin 5 API

      Comment

      • Lingo
        New Member
        • Nov 2017
        • 23
        • 5.3.x

        #4
        Originally posted by Wayne Luke
        The number or node id is the only unique identifier for any topic. There is nothing in the system preventing multiple topics in the same channel from having the exact same title. Without the node id of the topic starter, there is no way for the system to find the proper topic and display it.
        Yes, of course I understand that, the fact is that I see many forums that use vbulletin and have been able to do this, maybe you can just by htaccess rewrite the unique urls you have for seo reasons?

        Comment

        • Mark.B
          vBulletin Support
          • Feb 2004
          • 24286
          • 6.0.X

          #5
          Originally posted by Lingo

          Yes, of course I understand that, the fact is that I see many forums that use vbulletin and have been able to do this, maybe you can just by htaccess rewrite the unique urls you have for seo reasons?
          You have most likely seen earlier versions (vBulletin 3 and vBulletin 4) which had different URL structures, and may have been using a third party SEO rewrite product such as vBSEO or DBSEO.

          vBulletin 5 only has one URL structure, and there are no SEO add on products available for it.
          MARK.B
          vBulletin Support
          ------------
          My Unofficial vBulletin 6.0.0 Demo: https://www.talknewsuk.com
          My Unofficial vBulletin Cloud Demo: https://www.adminammo.com

          Comment

          • Lingo
            New Member
            • Nov 2017
            • 23
            • 5.3.x

            #6
            Originally posted by Mark.B

            You have most likely seen earlier versions (vBulletin 3 and vBulletin 4) which had different URL structures, and may have been using a third party SEO rewrite product such as vBSEO or DBSEO.

            vBulletin 5 only has one URL structure, and there are no SEO add on products available for it.
            Thank you, now I understand, yes, I came to know vbulletin from a Seo forum, and they did just that I see. So you are telling me that not even my programmer could change it?

            Comment

            • Mark.B
              vBulletin Support
              • Feb 2004
              • 24286
              • 6.0.X

              #7
              Originally posted by Lingo

              Thank you, now I understand, yes, I came to know vbulletin from a Seo forum, and they did just that I see. So you are telling me that not even my programmer could change it?
              Anything's possible with time/skill/money, however they would need to understand exactly what they were doing, and they would need to fully understand how the vBulletin code works so that they realise the implications of everything they change. It's not just a matter of altering a few lines of code, you are talking about substantially rewriting key parts of the software.

              Also note that we do not provide any support for custom code or for sites customised this way.

              You would also need to reapply the changes to the core files with every upgrade.

              Really, for all this work and substantial cost, you need to ask yourself what you're trying to achieve. What is the problem with a number in the URL? What day to day difficulties is it causing you?
              MARK.B
              vBulletin Support
              ------------
              My Unofficial vBulletin 6.0.0 Demo: https://www.talknewsuk.com
              My Unofficial vBulletin Cloud Demo: https://www.adminammo.com

              Comment

              • Lingo
                New Member
                • Nov 2017
                • 23
                • 5.3.x

                #8
                Originally posted by Mark.B



                Really, for all this work and substantial cost, you need to ask yourself what you're trying to achieve. What is the problem with a number in the URL? What day to day difficulties is it causing you?
                Yeah, sure, no doubt about this: the urls are pretty friendly even with a number, without it I guess they would be even better, but yes, it's a tiny flaw, if any, so it's not worth it, I agree.

                Comment

                • Mark.B
                  vBulletin Support
                  • Feb 2004
                  • 24286
                  • 6.0.X

                  #9
                  You can kind of go the opposite way and enable "Route By Node".

                  This makes all the content URLs work like this:

                  domain.com/node/XXXX

                  Where XXXX is the node id.

                  This makes URLs easier to use as they are all the same format, node/XXXX but you lose the keywords.

                  You can see Route By Node working on my demo site: www.talknewsuk.com.
                  MARK.B
                  vBulletin Support
                  ------------
                  My Unofficial vBulletin 6.0.0 Demo: https://www.talknewsuk.com
                  My Unofficial vBulletin Cloud Demo: https://www.adminammo.com

                  Comment

                  • Lingo
                    New Member
                    • Nov 2017
                    • 23
                    • 5.3.x

                    #10
                    Originally posted by Mark.B
                    You can kind of go the opposite way and enable "Route By Node".

                    This makes all the content URLs work like this:

                    domain.com/node/XXXX

                    Where XXXX is the node id.

                    This makes URLs easier to use as they are all the same format, node/XXXX but you lose the keywords.

                    You can see Route By Node working on my demo site: www.talknewsuk.com.
                    This of course I woud never do,I don't know why someone would want urls like these I don't think it's good to lose all the keys.

                    Comment

                    • Wayne Luke
                      vBulletin Technical Support Lead
                      • Aug 2000
                      • 73976

                      #11
                      Originally posted by Lingo
                      This of course I woud never do,I don't know why someone would want urls like these I don't think it's good to lose all the keys.
                      Not all characters in the UTF-8 library translate into routable URLs. The main problem is that browsers required these characters to be encoded. Some decode them for display. Some do not. Sometimes the URL is simply not usable and changing a character can do so. The "Route By Node ID" function is so that users can fix these URLs. However some customers using languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, and Cyrillic find the functionality useful enough to leave it on all the time.

                      Translations provided by Google.

                      Wayne Luke
                      The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
                      vBulletin 5 API

                      Comment

                      • Lingo
                        New Member
                        • Nov 2017
                        • 23
                        • 5.3.x

                        #12
                        Originally posted by Wayne Luke

                        Not all characters in the UTF-8 library translate into routable URLs. The main problem is that browsers required these characters to be encoded. Some decode them for display. Some do not. Sometimes the URL is simply not usable and changing a character can do so. The "Route By Node ID" function is so that users can fix these URLs. However some customers using languages like Arabic, Hebrew, Chinese, Japanese, and Cyrillic find the functionality useful enough to leave it on all the time.
                        So you mean that for chinese, arabic ect. it's better to put a number since some browsers might not read them? please wait, since I have a language forum which would be multilingual, I just opened a topic with chinese characters and as you can see works fine, or, I'm not sure I understood you, should I expect some issues, even though rare? I know this was a problem of the past, with IE, which now is all but dead, but I just checked and now all Browsers including the last versions of IE/Edge read them. If a small percentage might have issues I prefer this that forego the benefts of of a seo url.
                        Last edited by Lingo; Tue 28 Nov '17, 2:08pm.

                        Comment

                        • Mark.B
                          vBulletin Support
                          • Feb 2004
                          • 24286
                          • 6.0.X

                          #13
                          If it works you don't have to worry. Different servers can have different problems. It's not all absolute.

                          In terms of keywords in URLs, they are grossly overstated. It may have had some merit many years ago, although plenty of sites, mine included, have run for over a decade using showthread.php?t=xxx which was the only format for vBulletin 3, and search engines found us just fine.

                          Google have long since stopped indexing purely on keywords, they look at the content. If the keyword references something that it's not in the content, it'll be ignored. If the word is in the content but not in the URL, it'll get indexed. There's this myth that persists that you can 'fool' Google into ranking pages higher using trickery. You can't, at least not for any length of time.
                          MARK.B
                          vBulletin Support
                          ------------
                          My Unofficial vBulletin 6.0.0 Demo: https://www.talknewsuk.com
                          My Unofficial vBulletin Cloud Demo: https://www.adminammo.com

                          Comment

                          • Lingo
                            New Member
                            • Nov 2017
                            • 23
                            • 5.3.x

                            #14
                            Of course I did not mean to trick Google, but just have a little boost (albeit a small one) in the SERPs. You also have to take into account the user experience, always better with a friendly url. True keywords in the url are not so important like in the past, but for me, for instance, I got more than 1 billion users to tackle from Baidu, and Baidu i guess still does counts more keys. By the way, I just remembered how WP handles the problem you described: if you have a buy-pear article and then you create another article named always buy-pear then the second one would be name buy-pear-1 , this way you got the number in the url only if necessary.

                            Comment

                            • Wayne Luke
                              vBulletin Technical Support Lead
                              • Aug 2000
                              • 73976

                              #15
                              Originally posted by Lingo

                              So you mean that for chinese, arabic ect. it's better to put a number since some browsers might not read them? please wait, since I have a language forum which would be multilingual, I just opened a topic with chinese characters and as you can see works fine, or, I'm not sure I understood you, should I expect some issues, even though rare? I know this was a problem of the past, with IE, which now is all but dead, but I just checked and now all Browsers including the last versions of IE/Edge read them. If a small percentage might have issues I prefer this that forego the benefts of of a seo url.
                              New installs work pretty well. If possible, the install script will even create the database with a UTFMB4 character set so it will eventually support all the Emojis on your phone.

                              However, you should try it on a 10 year old database that is using a latin character set but contains UTF-8 characters. That is what many of our customers are dealing with. It is the customers that have been with the company 10 or more years and we have had to use many different workarounds to overcome limitations of technology that have the problems. Those sites have pages of information that number in the 100s of millions.
                              Translations provided by Google.

                              Wayne Luke
                              The Rabid Badger - a vBulletin Cloud demonstration site.
                              vBulletin 5 API

                              Comment

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