[T2DMan]

The vBSEO vBulletin url rewrites hack is the easiest way of comprehensively rewriting all of the urls on your forum and making them Google friendly - vBulletin rewrites with one simple product plugin.

See this forum as an example of the amazing urls that are possible. Get vBulletin url rewrites happening on your site, and make sure that you only have one url per page of content, but thats not all it does...

I recommend that every vBulletin installation get vBSEO



With pre vBulletin v3.5x, I had an SEO hack that changed many php files and templates. It was a world leader. However, instead of updating the hack for plugins, I decided to instead use the hard work of vBSEO that requires only two simple template changes, and a product plugin. Simple. Without such changes, the standard vBulletin package is not the best on the search engines.

So how impressive is vBSEO

• VERY IMPRESSIVE
• Since it is a program that is added on, there is only a product plugin and two small changes required to the templates. This makes it SO MUCH EASIER to upgrade to new vBulletin versions
• It supercedes all the PHP code changes that I recommended in my vBulletin hack
• ALL possible mentions of url's in the package are rewritten to be SEO compliant - ie only one url per page, and with proper url's rather than string url's
• You decide how the url's will look - fully configurable
• rel=nofollows added to non relevant links (although at my instigation vBulletin 3.5 includes many rel=nofollows)
• html is compacted (deleting html comments and spaces) - speeding up download speed and reducing bandwith requirements.
• rewrites archive to actual threads
• adds a footer link to the archive - my idea
• find out more - vBSEO

I totally recommend that the vbseo package be installed onto every vBulletin website.

Additional changes needed

I then recommend that a number of SEO and additional template changes be made

• see each of the changes on my Search Engine Optimize vBulletin 3.5 page
• contract me to do the changes required.

• titles
• meta descriptions (vbseo does have a meta description rewriter, but I prefer to hardprogram into the templates
• meta keywords
• navbar firstwords
• navbar h1
• increasing keyword density of the forum pages
• rewording the forum descriptions to include more instances of the forum title - the title being the keyphrase
• reconsidering the forum titles - are they the terms that people are searching for? Are more appropriate titles needed - each forum is able to be ranked on the SERP's
• guest intro phrase on the forum home page optimized for the home pages search terms
• ...

With SEO, everything is important

• getting the package SEO compliant is what vbSEO does.
• my changes mentioned above are virtually essential for pages to be able to be found.
• then of course links and Google PR is essential -
• then having a Google site map adds the finishing touch- see the vbseo Google sitemap

Please see my contracting page for further details about getting me to do the updates required on your site and pull all the packages together to maximise the potential of your site.

[T2DMan]

Add the following to your footer template and numbered links to your archive will be added. The links can be either just the forum archive link pages, or also include the pagination links.

[HTML]<!--VBSEO_ARCHIVE_LINKS-->[/HTML]

This allows for more Google PR to flow through to the archive pages, and therefore to your actual threads. It means that there are "less clicks" to get through to the threads - your content pages. If we take one click off from where inbound links come, then we increase the amount of Google PR by one that gets to the threads. That is very significant.

[T2DMan]

For the links module, there are many url's for the same pages. So I prefer to have vbseo set so that all string url's have rel=nofollow. Then I make just one version of the pages url to be rewritten.

[PHP]//links module
'browselinks\.php\?c=(\d+)' => 'browse-$1.html'
'showlink\.php\?l=(\d+)' => 'show-$1.html'
'showlink\.php\?do=showdetails&l=(\d+)&catid=(\d+) ' => 'details-$1-$2.html'

//destination module
'destinations\.php\?action=view&eid=(\d+)' => 'destinations/$1.html'[/PHP]

.htaccess for the above, when vbulletin is installed in the root, and the htaccess is installed in the root.

[PHP]RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} links/
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !vbseourl=
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1&vbseorelpath=./&%{QUERY_STRING} [L][/PHP]


Custom Rewrite Rules applied to the website root level when vBulletin is installed in a sub-folder.

Note: This requires an additional step in the installation process. The following .htaccess directives must be added in the *root folder* (not vBulletin folder):

per http://www.vbseo.com/f5/vbseo-2-2-1-...released-2160/

[PHP]RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !forum/
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !vbseourl=
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ forum/vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1&vbseorelpath=../&%{QUERY_STRING} [L][/PHP]

[note - added 1 Mar 2006 and date changed to get post order better]

[Michael]

I must admit it is certianly impressive the levels at which the URL rewrite can move too. But just how effective is it? No doubt you will have been monitoring the progress the rewrite has had on traffic and SERPs, any improvements?

[gigaenvy]

TDMAn,

Does this VBSEO work (e.g. benefit from SEO) for sites that block unregistered or guests (ie. people and bots)? You cannot read or post threads without paying.

Thanks

[T2DMan]

The purpose of vBSEO is to help the SEO aspect of vBulletin. So if your site is for private eyes only, the main benefit of it is lost.

However, how do you get traffic?

I assume that you have a public aspect of your forum? A public aspect that gets you traffic in, and so you can then sell your private side?

[gigaenvy]

Originally Posted by T2DMan

The purpose of vBSEO is to help the SEO aspect of vBulletin. So if your site is for private eyes only, the main benefit of it is lost.

However, how do you get traffic?

I assume that you have a public aspect of your forum? A public aspect that gets you traffic in, and so you can then sell your private side?

The public side is really nothing crazy. Some content, but nothing to throw the search engines into sheer happiness. We do get traffic and plenty of it possibly because of the keyword rich front page. I'll send you a PM.

Again, my goal is to increase traffic and positioning at an acceptable cost

[Michael]

I have just added VBSEO in, and i must say that from the days of installing modification such as the "Thread Catergory" hack; which seems to require around 50 file and template edits. VBSEO has made a modification as it should be, plug and play.

Although you are saying we should alter our meta tags but doesnt VBSEO do that for us automatically or should be actually just remove that particular segment and do it manually?

[T2DMan]

The vBSEO package has the ability to rewrite the meta description and meta keywords. The meta description becomes the first x words of the first post.

However, most times the first words of the post will not be search engine optimized - they will not include the first words of the title in the first lines of the post. People seldom write search engine optimized text, and therefore I consider it is better to use a formula of the title and some descriptive text as your meta description per my seo thread.

Also make sure you change the titles of your pages and add the navbar template change. Very essential for SEO of the forum.

[T2DMan]

One way to get faster response off your servers and cope with higher load, it to put what would have been in the htaccess file, into the httpd.conf file. This is generally only possible with dedicated servers as compared to shared servers.

RewriteEngine On

RewriteRule ^/forums/((urllist|sitemap).*\.(xml|txt)(\.gz)?)$ /forums/vbseo_sitemap/vbseo_getsitemap.php?sitemap=$1 [L]

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_FILENAME} -f
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} /(admincp|modcp|clientscript|cpstyles|images)/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ $1 [L]

RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} !vbseourl=
RewriteRule ^/forums/(.*\.php)$ /forums/vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

RewriteRule ^/forums/(archive/.*)$ /forums/vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_FILENAME}index.php -f
RewriteRule ^(.*)/$ $1/index.php [L]

RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
RewriteCond %{DOCUMENT_ROOT}%{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
RewriteRule ^/forums/(.+)$ /forums/vbseo.php?vbseourl=$1&%{QUERY_STRING} [L]