phpBB Search Engine Optimization - Sessions, static ( SEO )

Does your mod work on phpbb 2.0.8?
I am about to upgrade my forum to phpbb version 2.0.8. Does your mod work on that version?

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Steveorg: should be able to isolate which code refers to the signature and not implement it, but that would apply site wide, not forum specific. Unless you could do an auth check for sig's, there might be a separate mod at phpBB that allows for greater control over sigs.

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Re: Can signatures for guest views be retained?

steveorg wrote:

For some of my forums I plan on having experts moderate specific sub-forums. Part of my pitch to these experts is that the links to their site will help their search rankings. Because of this, I'd like to preserve the ability to retain signatures and the www profile button for guest views. Is there a way that I can do that?

Below is the relevant part of the mod that removes sigs for guests.

in viewtopic.php

Code:

# 

#-----[ FIND ]------------------------------------------ 

# 



$user_sig = ( $postrow[$i]['enable_sig'] && $postrow[$i]['user_sig'] != '' && $board_config['allow_sig'] ) ? $postrow[$i]['user_sig'] : ''; 





# 

#-----[ REPLACE WITH ]------------------------------------ 

# 



$user_sig = ( $postrow[$i]['enable_sig'] && $postrow[$i]['user_sig'] != '' && $board_config['allow_sig'] && $userdata['session_logged_in'] ) ? $postrow[$i]['user_sig'] : '';

Just remove/skip that part and the sigs will be back to normal.

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Re: Does your mod work on phpbb 2.0.8?

Farmernate wrote:

I am about to upgrade my forum to phpbb version 2.0.8. Does your mod work on that version?

It should. I've followed all the security updates and as long as nothing I don't know about was changed in 2.0.8 it should work.

Best way to find out is to try on a test install. :wink:

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J. R. Miller,

I suspect that the conflict with the merge mod is a session issue. And if so that's a big problem because teh session alteration here is the most critical part of the mod.

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Craven, Thanks much. I really appreciate the help. Very Happy

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Craven de Kere wrote:

J. R. Miller,

I suspect that the conflict with the merge mod is a session issue. And if so that's a big problem because teh session alteration here is the most critical part of the mod.

grrr. well I hate to do without the merge MOD, but yours seems much more valuable in the bigger picture... I love the usefulness of the other MOD though Crying or Very sad

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I saw this browsing through the forums at phpbb and wondered if there were any differences between this and your mod?

ummm, I was about to post the link but I'll pm you, it's called the guest sessions mod.

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Saw the code, there are a lot of differences, that whole mod is pretty much done with a couple lines in this mod.

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Stripping out the CSS - would that help?
I've implemented many of the great SEO suggestions in this mod, but I twisted many of them to apply to actual spiders and not all guests (as I want guests to be able to see/do some things that spiders can't). That said, would it be worthwhile from an SEO perspective to strip out the CSS if the visitor to the phpBB board is a spider? I'm assuming that since a lot of spiders don't seem to like looking beyond so many characters on a page, and that CSS doesn't matter to a search engine anyway, that this might be a good idea. Any thoughts?

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You should just remove the CSS from the page and put it an external file. That's important not just for search engines but to save on bandwidth and to harness the power of CSS.

Welcome to A2K.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

You should just remove the CSS from the page and put it an external file. That's important not just for search engines but to save on bandwidth and to harness the power of CSS.

Technically speaking, I understand putting the CSS in an external file, although on the other hand, I'm not too keen on veering away from the phpBB design for maintainability's sake. At any rate, the overall_header.tpl is pulled into every page that's generated, so it already has the "power" of being external, given that power means it's reused across all board pages.

I believe you're right on the bandwidth question though, since the CSS file is in most cases cached by the client browser, and thus the extra CSS text wouldn't be repeated in each page returned via http.

I guess the bottom line for search engine spiders (and this was my point), is that they don't need to see the CSS no matter what. So, I could either move it to an external file, or just have it not generated if a spider is visiting.

Craven de Kere wrote:

Welcome to A2K.

Happy to be here. Thanks!

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stevietheman wrote:

Technically speaking, I understand putting the CSS in an external file, although on the other hand, I'm not too keen on veering away from the phpBB design for maintainability's sake.

phpBB comes with the recommendation to move it to an external file.

This is from your source code:

Quote:

NOTE: These CSS definitions are stored within the main page body so that you can use the phpBB2
theme administration centre. When you have finalised your style you could cut the final CSS code
and place it in an external file, deleting this section to save bandwidth.

Quote:

I guess the bottom line for search engine spiders (and this was my point), is that they don't need to see the CSS no matter what. So, I could either move it to an external file, or just have it not generated if a spider is visiting.

There are two reasons why I'd not do this:

1) Some search engines will visit with an unamed spider to see if you are cloaking. What you suggest is a form of cloaking that they'd not usually object to but because cloaking is determined automatically in some cases you can inadvertently flag your site.

2) You'd need to keep all the spider user-agents up to date. They change, for example Yahoo just renamed their spider.

IMO, it's far more work to keep up with spider names.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

phpBB comes with the recommendation to move it to an external file.

This is from your source code:

Quote:
NOTE: These CSS definitions are stored within the main page body so that you can use the phpBB2
theme administration centre. When you have finalised your style you could cut the final CSS code
and place it in an external file, deleting this section to save bandwidth.

Not sure that I'm ever done finalizing my style however. I tend to make a few changes now and again. If I decide I can do w/o the theme admin for future style changes, I may go ahead and move it to a separate file.

Craven de Kere wrote:

Quote:
I guess the bottom line for search engine spiders (and this was my point), is that they don't need to see the CSS no matter what. So, I could either move it to an external file, or just have it not generated if a spider is visiting.

There are two reasons why I'd not do this:

1) Some search engines will visit with an unamed spider to see if you are cloaking. What you suggest is a form of cloaking that they'd not usually object to but because cloaking is determined automatically in some cases you can inadvertently flag your site.

There are some valid reasons for some kinds of minor cloaking, but I can see your point where a cloaking this large could cause an issue. However, on a technical basis, I'm not sure why a spider should consider hiding CSS to be tantamount to cloaking.

Craven de Kere wrote:

2) You'd need to keep all the spider user-agents up to date. They change, for example Yahoo just renamed their spider.

IMO, it's far more work to keep up with spider names.

I don't mind tracking names of the spiders. They don't change so often as to really be a bother. And I do see real benefits from having site code be spider-cognizant.

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Do you also not mind breaking the template system? And breaking the ability to edit the CSS through the admin panel?

The CSS is in tpl files, which by default do not allow for PHP. So they can't be cloaked there.

So what you'd need to do is add code to the php files that would display the CSS as an else (with the if being the statements that define what bots to deny the CSS to).

Now that woudn't be hard to write, but get this:

If you do this you will not only break the ability to have multiple templates but you would break the ability for browser based editing anyway.

So if you want:

1) No big modification to phpbb
2) Cloaking of CSS
3) Ability to edit CSS through admin panel

Well, that's just not viable.

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OK, first you recommend moving the CSS to an external file, and now you're not. Which is it? You're confusing me.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

Do you also not mind breaking the template system? And breaking the ability to edit the CSS through the admin panel?

It's what you recommended.

Craven de Kere wrote:

The CSS is in tpl files, which by default do not allow for PHP. So they can't be cloaked there.

Of course they can, with switches.

Craven de Kere wrote:

So what you'd need to do is add code to the php files that would display the CSS as an else (with the if being the statements that define what bots to deny the CSS to).

Naaah.

Craven de Kere wrote:

Now that woudn't be hard to write, but get this:

If you do this you will not only break the ability to have multiple templates but you would break the ability for browser based editing anyway.

You said to move the CSS to an external file. I don't need my boards to have multiple templates anyway--it's kind of a useless feature anyway. I have one template and that's all I need for each board.

Craven de Kere wrote:

So if you want:

1) No big modification to phpbb
2) Cloaking of CSS
3) Ability to edit CSS through admin panel

Well, that's just not viable.

I already understood the trade-offs. At any rate, moving the CSS to an external file isn't a "big modification to phpbb". And again, it's what you recommended.

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Steve, I'm not recommending anything but moving it to an external file.

I was, however, pointing out that what you want to do is somthing I think is unecessarily complicated.

But point taken about switches, you could create a switch and it should serve nicely. For some reason I'd not thought of a bot switch, and I use switches a lot.

Now earlier you'd said you didn't want to move the CSS because you didn't want to veer too far from phpbb. IMO creating switches is more of a change but if that's what you want, well that's what ya want.

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Mozilla Navigation
Craven,

First off, great mod. Just started using it, so I haven't seen any results yet, but I'm sure it will work like a charm.

My question is about the Mozilla navigation bar section in the page_header.php file. It gives a section of code like this:

Code:

<link rel="top" href="./index.php" title="Go Buccaneers Go! Bucs Chat Board Forum Index" />

<link rel="search" href="./search.php" title="Search" />

<link rel="help" href="./faq.php" title="FAQ" />

<link rel="author" href="./memberlist.php" title="Memberlist" />

<link rel="prev" href="bucs-prev12.html" title="View previous topic" />

<link rel="next" href="bucs-next12.html" title="View next topic" />

<link rel="up" href="bucs-forum2.html" title="Buccaneers Discussion" />

<link rel="chapter forum" href="bucs-forum2.html" title="Buccaneers Discussion" />

<link rel="chapter forum" href="bucs-forum3.html" title="Tampa Bay Buccaneers Tickets" />

included in this is the code for the next and previous topics that we took out in the mod (section 19). I was wondering if this could possibly mess up rankings. Do the spiders see these links? Do I need to just get rid of the entire section of code so that the spiders will not follow these links?

Thanks in advance!

George

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Don't worry about it, it's not displayed for SE spiders with the mod.

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