phpBB Search Engine Optimization - Sessions, static ( SEO )

Google Boggle's everyone
As far as seo goes you might be using robots.txt to get a feeling that google will not crawl this site, but if somebody enters an "ADULT" link on your forum this site will be in trouble.

Google has adopted several techniques which are hard to interpret due to their inconsistency in maintaining those rules. Google will tell you to simply add robots.txt, and we are the "Goody Goody Guys, and even if you have Adult site/blacklisted site listed in your forum, we will turn our blind eye to it Smile

.

Dont underestimate Google, it can pull links out of flash macromedia files without the knowledge of the webmaster.

Beware of Google Cool

regards
Edit (Moderator): URL removed

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True, URLs entered onto your site can definitely harm your search engine ranking. Look into a phpBB mod called "Deter Comment Spam", by TerraFrost. It's on the official site in the mods section.

This mod is working fine on my 2.0.21 forum, with visual confirmation. I believe VC is primarily handled by usercp_confirm.php, which is not modified by this mod, so not sure what could be causing that.

Lastly, this mod doesn't disable Profile viewing by users, only by guests (i.e., search engines).

Foul

P.S. I've been keeping a small candle burning on the dresser in the hope that Craven will finish up version 3.0. I assume it got derailed with the massive reworking of phpBB last year.

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Craven de Kere wrote:

sallam wrote:

I understand your point and respect it Craven, but could you please reconsider?

It depends on the time it would take to do so.

For example, I am not willing to actively support easymod problems. So I'm not willing to setup a whole forum install just to test easymod.

However, if someone posts the syntax requirements for easymod I would be happy to try to adapt my mod where possible to the standard.

Whether it will end up easymod compliant or not would depend on feedback and the time I have, as I won't install easymod on my project sites and am unlikely to get time to setup an easymod sandbox.

When can we expect to see an easymod compliant version... I can't seem to get this working with easymod...

More information about easymod can be found here: http://area51.phpbb.com/phpBB/viewforum.php?sid=&f=15

Its also sometimes called EZmod (for search purposes)

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It's not Craven's responsibility to make his mod EasyMOD compliant. I see this type of message posted on many mod-support threads.

Not to be rude -- I realize you're just trying to install the mod, and having problems -- but you should not be installing any mods at all if you do not have a decent grasp of HTML and PHP. Unfortunately, EasyMOD has made a lot of people believe that mods are "plug-and-play", and indeed, some are -- but most are not.

In the installation instructions, this mod is listed as "Advanced", and it's that way for a reason. To get it working properly, you need to activate mod-rewrite on an Apache server. That's not something that EasyMOD can do for you. EasyMOD also famously chokes on SQL queries, which is something else you need to know how to do manually. And thirdly, the mod has not been updated for 2.0.21, so some of the FIND/REPLACE statements may not be completely accurate.

If you choose to tinker with a vanilla phpBB installation, realize that the odds of screwing it up royally are pretty good. Your best bet, if you absolutely must tinker with a vanilla phpBB install, is to start off with very basic mods, and enter them by hand. That's how I started. EasyMOD is best used as a time-saving tool, where you know EXACTLY what it's doing, and if something goes wrong, you already know EXACTLY where to fix it, based on the error message presented. EasyMOD does not (yet) have an uninstall function, so you need to know how to reverse the changes it makes if you find you've broken your forum.

Again, this is not meant as a flame. I just don't think it's incumbent on mod authors to hand-hold new users through installing what has already been clearly stated is an "advanced" mod.

Foul

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FoulFoot wrote:

It's not Craven's responsibility to make his mod EasyMOD compliant. I see this type of message posted on many mod-support threads.

Not to be rude -- I realize you're just trying to install the mod, and having problems -- but you should not be installing any mods at all if you do not have a decent grasp of HTML and PHP. Unfortunately, EasyMOD has made a lot of people believe that mods are "plug-and-play", and indeed, some are -- but most are not.

In the installation instructions, this mod is listed as "Advanced", and it's that way for a reason. To get it working properly, you need to activate mod-rewrite on an Apache server. That's not something that EasyMOD can do for you. EasyMOD also famously chokes on SQL queries, which is something else you need to know how to do manually. And thirdly, the mod has not been updated for 2.0.21, so some of the FIND/REPLACE statements may not be completely accurate.

If you choose to tinker with a vanilla phpBB installation, realize that the odds of screwing it up royally are pretty good. Your best bet, if you absolutely must tinker with a vanilla phpBB install, is to start off with very basic mods, and enter them by hand. That's how I started. EasyMOD is best used as a time-saving tool, where you know EXACTLY what it's doing, and if something goes wrong, you already know EXACTLY where to fix it, based on the error message presented. EasyMOD does not (yet) have an uninstall function, so you need to know how to reverse the changes it makes if you find you've broken your forum.

Again, this is not meant as a flame. I just don't think it's incumbent on mod authors to hand-hold new users through installing what has already been clearly stated is an "advanced" mod.

Foul

Well its his responsibility to a certain extent, his MOD syntax should be inline with EasyMod's (as this uses the correct syntax), which by the looks of things it isn't which is causing problems. So I guess thats one issue.

My understanding of PHP and HTML is far beyond what you realise, this is not in question here. The whole point of "EasyMOD" (its in the title), is to make it EASY to MOD... I don't know about you, but personally spending 20 mins per mod everytime I setup phpBB is not realistic.

The other things you're talking about are just incorrect, flame bate, or creative avoidance, so I won't even bother commenting on them.

If the author of this MOD wants to keep his top spot for phpBB SEO, he should keep the mod up-to-date and in-line.

And on that note, if the author is not interested I will do it. As such I have created a post here for people interested in getting this mod working with EasyMOD here... http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=77767

If you are interested make a post.

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my original post no. section should appear like this:

Quote:

Posts: 6

but now it shows like this:

Quote:

nissy_d" class="postdetails">Posts: 6

and the link is pointing to

Quote:

http://xxx.com/forum/search.php?search_author=<span%20style=

which is wrong.

my code in tpl file is exactly like what is given by you

any idea of what is happening?

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besides, my web host don't allow me to upload .htaccess file. does that meanI can't use the phpBB static URLs mod _rewrite ?

also, i try to disable an image for guest and spider by putting <BEGIN> and <END> around the code (say {postrow.RANK_IMAGE} ) but the image still didn't shown after i logged in.

sorry for 2 many questions. thnaks again

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hm2k wrote:

My understanding of PHP and HTML is far beyond what you realise, this is not in question here. The whole point of "EasyMOD" (its in the title), is to make it EASY to MOD... I don't know about you, but personally spending 20 mins per mod everytime I setup phpBB is not realistic.

Uh, OK. So there's one of two possibilities here:

1) You don't actually have the HTML or PHP experience you claim to, because if you did, you'd know that making the mod EasyMOD compliant is not particularly difficult, and you'd just do it yourself,

2) You're a troll.

Not sure which one it is, and not sure I care. Since the mod author has already spelled out quite clearly that he's not interested in making his mod EasyMOD compliant (as he states, it requires setting up a vanilla forum to test it, and he doesn't have the time or inclination), exactly what did you expect to gain from posting another message about it? Why didn't you spend your time more productively, and just fix it yourself?

Ah, that's right. One of the two reasons above.

For those interested, the most likely reason that the mod is not EasyMOD compatible (aside from the aforementioned mod-rewrite, which it ain't going to do for you, buddy), is that the FIND statements are out of sequential order. EasyMOD is unable to go "backwards" in file to FIND something. Again, for someone who has about 20 minutes -- and has the necessary vanilla files to work with -- this is an easy fix. I imagine that's what I did, myself, when I installed this last year -- I installed everything with EasyMOD, and I don't remember any particular headaches with this one.

Foul

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FoulFoot wrote:

hm2k wrote:
My understanding of PHP and HTML is far beyond what you realise, this is not in question here. The whole point of "EasyMOD" (its in the title), is to make it EASY to MOD... I don't know about you, but personally spending 20 mins per mod everytime I setup phpBB is not realistic.

Uh, OK. So there's one of two possibilities here:

1) You don't actually have the HTML or PHP experience you claim to, because if you did, you'd know that making the mod EasyMOD compliant is not particularly difficult, and you'd just do it yourself,

2) You're a troll.

Not sure which one it is, and not sure I care. Since the mod author has already spelled out quite clearly that he's not interested in making his mod EasyMOD compliant (as he states, it requires setting up a vanilla forum to test it, and he doesn't have the time or inclination), exactly what did you expect to gain from posting another message about it? Why didn't you spend your time more productively, and just fix it yourself?

Ah, that's right. One of the two reasons above.

For those interested, the most likely reason that the mod is not EasyMOD compatible (aside from the aforementioned mod-rewrite, which it ain't going to do for you, buddy), is that the FIND statements are out of sequential order. EasyMOD is unable to go "backwards" in file to FIND something. Again, for someone who has about 20 minutes -- and has the necessary vanilla files to work with -- this is an easy fix. I imagine that's what I did, myself, when I installed this last year -- I installed everything with EasyMOD, and I don't remember any particular headaches with this one.

Foul

I'm having problems getting his code to work, for some odd reason its returning errors, saying it can't find a string, yet I can clearly find that string. I've yet to speak to EasyMOD about this to try and resolve it.

I do admit that I have very limited phpbb backend experience, however my knowledge of html and php is not questionable.

There's also a third option, I will actually do what I say, and I will create an SEO phpBB mod that is compatible with EasyMOD. However first of all I wanted to give the author a chance to say whether he was going to update or not, so with you saying he will not be updating, I know no where I stand.

After reading what you said further I understand by putting the FIND in sequence of how they are located in the file, I can avoid the FIND errors EasyMOD is producing.

With that in mind, clearly I am now neither of your above two options and I understand that by making my comments I was able to find the solution to the problem, had I not, I would not have resolved it for EasyMOD use.

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hm2k wrote:

I'm having problems getting his code to work, for some odd reason its returning errors, saying it can't find a string, yet I can clearly find that string.

EasyMOD is also very specific on spaces. If the FIND statement has leading spaces before the statement, or even (invisible, unless you highlight them) spaces after the statement, it expects to find those in the file.

Foul

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FoulFoot wrote:

hm2k wrote:
I'm having problems getting his code to work, for some odd reason its returning errors, saying it can't find a string, yet I can clearly find that string.

EasyMOD is also very specific on spaces. If the FIND statement has leading spaces before the statement, or even (invisible, unless you highlight them) spaces after the statement, it expects to find those in the file.

Foul

Yes I did notice the author was a bit trigger happy with spaces, I have already adjusted the MOD with that in mind. However it still didn't work, this was due to the problem discussed earlier, where easymod cannot search backwards.

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/forum/forum-1.html but doesn't exist ?
I completed the mod very slowly and carefully using dreamweaver's find and replace feature (works well!) But apparently something didn't work. Perhaps it's obvious to those with more experience with this mod. When NOT logged in and I go to click on a forum name, it takes me to /forum/forum-1.html which brings up a not found page. When I'm logged in, however, and click on the same forum, it takes me to /forum/viewforum.php?f=1 and the page is there. When logged in and I click on a topic, I get /forum/viewtopic.php?t=3 which apparently means the static URL didn't work. Can anyone help me with this? I really went through the mod slowly to make sure I got it right. Sad

thanks in advance,
Mike

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Static URLs are only for guests (i.e., searchbots). Registered users will still get dynamic URLs, so this is normal.

Looks like you've got a problem somehow with the mod-rewrite. Is your .htaccess in your forum directory (where it should be) or in root?

Foul

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The bananas over at Valueweb gave me conflicting answers when I asked about mod rewrite, the first guy said yeah it's enabled so I did all the mods to my forum, and tried everything to get it to work, then I called again, diff guy told me the previous guy was wrong and that it's not enabled... sooo it's not enabled =(
I'm guessing there aren't any work-arounds for people who don't have access to the mod rewrite...

However, let me ask you this, I'm starting a blog as well with Wordpress and I downloaded a plugin that writes seo urls and I didn't have to make any changes to the htaccess file, so how does that work?

Mike

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The plug-in is something that modifies Wordpress itself. You could do something similar to phpBB, if you knew what you were doing. It would probably break all sorts of other things, though.

The mod-rewrite mod doesn't effect phpBB itself. It simply sits "in between" phpBB and your browser. When phpBB spits out a dynamic URL, it converts it to a static one for your browser.

I believe the topic of getting rid of dynamic URLs and session IDs for phpBB has been brought up before to the developers, and for whatever reason they've said they won't do it. Perhaps it's something they will incorporate into phpBB 3.0; I don't know.

As far as your web host goes... I can offer you a far superior host on my server. Probably cheaper too! And mod-rewrite works fine. Smile

Foul

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thanks for the offer, I know there are many better web hosts out there, just not ready to make a change yet. In the middle of a lot of site redesign and marketing research, etc.. I like how the permalink thing works in wordpress, something similar should be adopted for the next version of phpbb, then again, google has no trouble indexing pages based on content, whether "seo friendly urls" or not so I'm not terribly concerned about it..

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I'd like the logged in users to see the same SE friendly urls that are used for guests and bots. Is it possible? If it is, how?
Thanks

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If you remove the three IF lines in page_header.php and page_tail.php:

Code:if ( !$userdata['session_logged_in'] )

That would probably do it. Though I believe that there's a very good reason that this was not done for logged-in users, I don't know what the reason is.

Foul

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Thanks FoulFoot, this seems to be the solution. I hope there will be no unexpected problems caused by this change.

The reason I want to do this is, that if you have different urls for users and guests, there is a potential duplicate content danger. Google (and other SEs) have your forum threads indexed with the SE friendly urls. But when a registered forum user finds an interesting thread on your forum, they will link to it from their website with the url they see - the NON SE friendly one. When Google finds this link on the user's site, they will crawl it, and the problem is here. They will find the same content that they already have indexed under the SE friendly url, but this time the same content is under a difefrent url on your site. Hence duplicate content.

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Could not open robots.txt and .htaccess
Hi all,

My first post here :-)

I have a phpbb forum with a couple of mods already installed using EasyMOD and there were no problems. I then tried to install SEO 2.0.0 and it wouldn't accept it so I did it by hand and it seems to now be working fine - however.........

EasyMOD would also not install static URL's 1.0.0, it's saying could not open robots.txt and could not open .htaccess, I have gone in and manually edited the htaccess file so I know it's there but I can't find the robots.txt.

Ideally I just want easy mod to do the install for me as that would make my life much easier (not being a developer) alternatively I could do it by hand, but where do I find the robots.txt?

Thanks for any help you can offer.

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