How to convert vBulletin dynamic pages to flat pages?

[diyguy]

As they say in radio, long time listener(reader) first time caller(poster). Hello to every one.:hi:

Doug, I noticed you have about 1,270 pages indexed in google for this site. Excellent job for a dynamicly created site! I would like to do the same with my two forums.

A little background...
We use both vBulletin Version 1.1.4 and vBulletin Version 2.0.1 in two separate forums. (Same software you use.) Each forum has approx 50,000 threads. The SEs(mostly google) currently have about 150 pages indexed for each site.

My question...
How do you convert your threads on the fly so that the url does not include a ? and the url ends with an html extension.

Thanks!

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums diyguy! :hi:

Yes. This forum has been opened since June 5th so Google eats up these pages.

Well, all I can say is that the way this forum was done is without a doubt the best way to get Google to index everything. Googlebot has even indexed the pages with ? marks in them plus has indexed the Printer version pages as well. I have double up on most of the pages because of this.

I will have to get Ryan, my programmer to tell you exactly how he did it. Amazing to me. Next index will be way over 2000 indexed.

[ihelpyou]

hey diyguy, great looking site! I was in the lumber business for 20 years so your site looks ohhhh so familiar. :)

[diyguy]

Doug,

Thank you so much. I have been researching how to accomplish this for some time and have not found a satifactory solution. I really look forward to hearing from Ryan.

Is it advisable to link the logo in the upper left portion of the home page to direct the spiders to the forums? I figure this would be the best place.

FYI I came across this site the other day in a article.
BoardReader ( http://www.boardreader.com/ ) is a search engine developed for one of those Internet "nooks and crannies" that few people have paid mind to; message boards....

[ihelpyou]

Yes. That is why I linked the logo on the left top directly back to the front page of the forums. I feel the spiders can then always go back to the front page very easily this why in case they lose their way. The logo is on every page and linked for this reason. Googlebot spiders one forum at a time, then goes back to the front and spiders the next forum.

Ryan should be posting here with some details.

[lucky luke]

Hi There,

I saw ihelpyou's questions about search engine listing over on the community board at www.vbulletin.com ... good questions.

I'm in a similar spot to the one you were in a few months ago .. I'm desperate to get www.self-employed.co.uk listed!

Can you share your experiences for getting a vbulletin board listed? Sorts of things may include where you added in new code to the templates, header usage, metatagging...

Also, looking forward to Ryan's post .... any joy?

Many thanks indeed,

Luke

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums Lucky Luke! :hi:

Yes. We are waiting for Chris or Ryan to give us the scoop about how they did it. It is by far the best way. They did it, and know how. I have no clue. :)

[Blue]

:hi:

[lucky luke]

Thank you for the welcome, guys.

I'll do some reading through this very friendly board.

I look forward to Chris and/or Ryan's words & code of wisdom...

Best regards, Luke

[analog]

Sorry for the delay. Was out in the harsh Eastern Washington sunshine working hard on my tan! :happy:

This is done using the mod_rewrite module of apache. It gets to be very complicated, and required alot of re-coding in the vBulletin code. It may be easier if vBulletin is installed in the root dir of your domain, unlike these forums, which are in the /forums dir.

Also, some features are broken by the rules. Like the ability to attach files, and upload personal avatars.

Anyway, these are the rules this forum uses. You would put them in a .htaccess file, or httpd.conf:


RewriteEngine on

RewriteRule ^/forums/f([0-9]+)/s([^/]+?)$ /forums/forumdisplay.php?forumid=$1&s=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^/forums/t([0-9]+)/s([^/]+?)\.html$ /forums/showthread.php?threadid=$1&s=$2 [L]
RewriteRule ^/forums/s([^/])+?/$ /forums/index.php?s=$1 [L]


This takes some technical know how, but is well worth the effort, as you can see Doug's forums are well spidered. If you need more personal help, feel free to email me at hosting@analoghosting.com, and we can work something out.

[ihelpyou]

Thanks for that Ryan!

Yes. Ryan and Chris are pretty savvy tech cookies. :)

[JuniorHarris]

For more details regarding the mod_rewrite see:

Module mod_rewrite (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_rewrite.html)
Apache 1.3
URL Rewriting Guide (http://httpd.apache.org/docs/misc/rewriteguide.html)

[lucky luke]

Thanks for the references .... I've had a peek at them and they look like they're a fair bit beyond my current technical ability. I'll digest it all very slowly ;)

Luke

[JMackmo]

Hi

I'm new in here.. I'm deaf.. I want to kno anyone know where i can find for design of website to work on it.. soi hope u can give me the link so i can look up there if i like those..
Thanks for my help.. :)

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums JMackmo! :hi:

You should post your request in the "Professional Help" forum in here if you want someone to design a site for you.

[Alan Perkins]

Just some hints on mod rewrite

1) You need to be running Apache!
2) You need the mod rewrite module installed (it isn't by default)
3) Even extreme propeller heads describe it as voodoo!
4) It only gives you a (non-dynamic-looking) alternative URL for accessing content. It doesn't "magically" make your site non-dynamic. Normally you need a static hand-crafted "map" page, utilising these non-dynamic URLs, to guide the spiders around. You can suffer diluted link popularity using this approach.

mod rewrite can be excellent (as Doug's experience shows) but it is not a silver bullet...