phpBB Search Engine Optimization - Sessions, static ( SEO )

I should've know you were on the case!

Just another quickie, regarding my last question:



If I wanted one of the keywords above to consist of two words, what would be the best way to implement it? For eg, should say keyword2 be something like two-keywords or two_keywords or should I stay away from having two keywords? From your experience do you thnk google sees quality_homes for example as two seperate keywords or just one word? Or, would it prefer the two keywords to be seperated by a hypen? I am also asking this question as I have considered naming directory names with more than one keyword!

Thanks once again for your help!
p.s. any ideas when the next version of your mod is to be released? :-)

Google can usually recognize all variations, even putting it all together.

But hypens and underscores are the best way with the current algos.



I have no idea, I have about 15-25 mods that I haven't even had time to put in mod format and release.

Hell, I just contacted someone to pay to write a mod for me.

I've very little time these days. I now have a fulltime job in SEO, and I might have time to dedicate to this mod later (e.g. I might setup phpBB sites as a part of my job and would then have time for this).

I'm assuming 2.0.10 is fine too?

No problem, I just modded a 2.0.10 board.

Craven, I don't want you to provide support for other people's mods, but do you think that there's a work-around for making the above work...?

Thank you very much!

BTW. The googlebot did a deep search on my site about 3 weeks ago. It indexed 271 pages. Then it did another one three days ago. It indexed 670 pages. Should I expect the number of indexed pages to increase with each deep search? FWIW my site has got 6672 topics.

Joe,

It's possible but let me explain why I wouldn't do it (in addition to simply not having the time).

The way the rewrite works on the phpBB end is to simply replace certain strings site-wide.

That particular mod introduces a different string for a particular file, and would need a new rule for that particular mod for just that one file. I do not know the mod and have no intention of changing that (I just don't have the time).

So the best I can offer is some general advice on how to do it, and if you want to test away you can probably figure it out.

The code in includes/page_header.php for the rewrite mod has arrays to replace strings.

The first dynamic one corresponds with the first static one.

e.g.



is rewritten to:



Note the "([0-9]*)", that means it's a numerical variable that is supposed to be passed on to the static URL, and the "\\1" is where the first variable will be inserted for example.

So what you'd need to do is make a rule that captures the variable that mod introduces and make a rule for a new static url. I do not know what kind of variable it is, and don't have time to test the many combinations of rules and test for the problems a new rule can cause so I can't do much except to tell you to try to mimmick the rules and test extensively.

On the .htaccess end you'll need to mimick the existing rules and make a reverse of the rule you make in page_header.php.

Many mods out there introduce new things and I can't keep up with them.

Heck I was looking at my own code just now and do not remember all the implications of the rules off the top of my head.

So my only recommendation is to test and test. If I have time for this kind of testing of this mod I would do better to dedicate it to fine tuning the existing rules to incorporate SIDs for logged in members, so that the mod can use static URLs for everyone.



I really can't say without spending a lot of time analyzing your site and keeping up to date on the server logs.

One big misconception is that this mod will make Google spider you, and that's not accurate it facilitates it but Google's spidering is based on other metrics as well.

Think of it like this parable.

phpBB without the session change in the mod is like a locked house. Some spiders can still get in through the windows but will sometimes not think it worth it.

So addressing their session ID aversion is like opening the doors. Making the URLs static is like throwing the doors open.

Thing is, this doesn't mean the spider will want to come inside.

The other changes in the mod are like removing all the clutter and putting it in the closet, so that when the spider does come in it will find the things in the house that it is interested in more easily and will have a better impression fo the house.

Some changes are also dedicated to making the spider think the house is wicked cool and to recommend the house with greater prominence (i.e. better position on the SERPs).

So I don't know what Google will do with your site, I do not know how much they fancy your house.

Many many things go into how deep the spider will go, ranging from backlinks, link flow, how deep in directory structure the forum is and much more...

So I have no idea, I know how much search engines will spider my sites because I keep track of many of these things (for example, Google will probably spend about 5 GB of bandwith spidering my site if they do another deep crawl).

If your house is looking increasingly attractive and your topics are increasing I bet they will spider it more deeply.

Thing is, this may not correlate to a single deep crawl you seem to be thinking of.

Google is moving away from deep crawls to a more rapid fresh crawl system for fresher results.

Google is on A2K all day every day and not once a month for e.g.

The crawling behavior varies widely, and it's unclear where in the transition (between crawling styles) Google is right now.

Installed Able2Know.com SEO 2.0.0 and phpBB static URLs mod_rewrite 1.0.0 mods on my forum today and everything worked first time. No problems at all.

Whilst testing I made one further modification which removes the link to poster profiles from the search results page. Here's what I did:



I hope someone finds this useful.
Simon

Thank you, Craven. I have installed all of your SEO and I have removed a few additional things I found to be redundant. For instance, my board does not allow guest posting, so no need for the "mark all posts read" for guests. Also at the bottom of each post I removed the time zone notification. Not really sure whether these additional steps count for anything in terms of SEO, though...

Wow! After a couple of trys it works like a charm on 2.0.10

Hi i need help installing phpBB static URLs mod _rewrite 1.0.0


as soon as i add this code to page_tail.php
i start getting 404 page can't be found.


if ( !$userdata['session_logged_in'] )
{
$contents = ob_get_contents();
ob_end_clean();
echo replace_for_mod_rewrite($contents);
global $dbg_starttime;
}


please help!

Ask your host if you have mod_rewrite

ok i'll do that, what if i don't can i not use the mod?

Just not the static URL part.

i just contacted my host and they say
"apache mod_rewrite already been installed, you can use it."
so what else could it be?

Then you did the .htaccess portion incorrectly

this is a copy of my .htaccess file

RewriteEngine On
RewriteRule ^forums.* index.php [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^post-([0-9]*).html&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*) viewtopic.php?p=$1&highlight=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^post-([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?p=$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^view-poll([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([a-zA-Z]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&postdays=$2&postorder=$3&vote=viewresult [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html&highlight=([a-zA-Z0-9]*) viewtopic.php?t=$1&highlight=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html&view=newest viewtopic.php?t=$1&view=newest [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([a-zA-Z]*)-([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&postdays=$2&postorder=$3&start=$4 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*)-([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&start=$2 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^about([0-9]*).html viewtopic.php?t=$1&start=$2&postdays=$3&postorder=$4&highlight=$5 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^mark-forum([0-9]*).html* viewforum.php?f=$1&mark=topics [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^updates-topic([0-9]*).html* viewtopic.php?t=$1&watch=topic [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^stop-updates-topic([0-9]*).html* viewtopic.php?t=$1&unwatch=topic [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^forum-([0-9]*).html viewforum.php?f=$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^forum-([0-9]*).* viewforum.php?f=$1 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^topic-([0-9]*)-([0-9]*)-([0-9]*).* viewforum.php?f=$1&topicdays=$2&start=$3 [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^ptopic([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&view=previous [L,NC]
RewriteRule ^ntopic([0-9]*).* viewtopic.php?t=$1&view=next [L,NC]

any ideas?

Ptirhiik's Announces Suite
I know it is probably fairly simple but for the life of me I can't seam to figure out how to make the same changes to the (Ptirhiik's Announces Suite) Board Announcements as was made to the rest of my forums. I want the Board Announcements not to link the author and link the date to the last post just like Able2Know.com SEO 2.0.0 did to the rest of my forums.

Yes, put it in the right place, looks like you have already figured it out.

Everything's working fine for me, with one small exception:

Your modification to index_body.tpl includes adding a switch so that users not logged in (i.e., crawlers) will not see the "Who's Online" table section. I added those switch brackets into the index_body.tpl of my default template (I also put it in SubSilver template, though that isn't my default), but this table is still showing up for users not logged in.

I've looked at the file multiple times, but I can't figure out why it's not working. It should be simple: add

<!-- BEGIN switch_user_logged_in -->

above the "Who's Online" table, and place

<!-- END switch_user_logged_in -->

at the end of it.

The next table down begins with <!-- BEGIN switch_user_logged_out -->, and it controls the log-in prompts.

Any ideas?