Even more Search Engine friendly mod_rewrite

Hello

I have enabled the mod_rewrite and it works just fine.

But is there a way of making the mod_rewrite even more search engine friendly ?

One suggestion could be to include the name of the forum or the name of the topic in the html file name.

This would mean that instead of displaying a filename called "1_5_0.html" it would display "1_nameoftopic_0.html"

This would most certainly result in more hits from search engines - but is it possible and how can this be done?

Please help me out with this one

I think you have got the wrong idea, what you want to achieve is make the file name more user friendly.

This plays no part in making the address friendlier to search engines, they do not care about the url (in most cases) so long as it does not contain any variables or code.

What you are suggesting is not hard in theory, however if you do not know already then you will have a big task in front of you. Mod rewrite does not create the links that are output to the page, it only rewrites the links on the page if it meets a certain rule.

That basically means that the links for minibb mod rewrite are already hardcoded to a specific output.

p.s. addon from above forgot to login.

I do not think that it is needed, you will be making a lot of work for yourself with no benefit.

All the popular search engines do not have links from the page url in specific instead they use the page title and description, and the link is shaded out at the bottom of the description, how often do you look at the url and think I will not visit that link because it is not user friendly.

The reason I want to do this, is because google and yahoo both give higher placements to sites, where the search-term is included in the URL

For example:
If I search for the word "miniBB" on Google, the sites where the word miniBB are part of the URL, will rank higher, that sites where miniBB is not part of the URL

This means that a page with information on miniBB that has the address http://something.com/something.html

will rank lower than a page with the address http://something.com/miniBB_page.html


Doing a mod_rewrite that gives you file names that include a lot of words is a sure way of getting extra hits - that is why it is so important.

Yes I am aware of what that, the thing is do you really need this for a forum?

The simple fact of getting the pages indexed is good enough to give you better rankings which in turn will boost your pages that you really want the hits for.

That is unless you are only running a forum, which rprovides very little oppourtunity to earn money, so page rankings is irrelevant.

Personally I do not think it is so important that a forum is ranked high the fact it is indexed should be enough.

The sucess of my site will depend heavily on my ability to get hits and returning visitors.

I simply need to get a high ranking on search engines.

I know that this should not be necessary in an ideal world, but I have invested many hours and a lot of money in my site. I simply need to get good rankings on google and yahoo.

Could someone please tell me how to do a mod_rewrite that includes the name of the topic or the name of the forum in the hmtl file name ?

Anyways I had a quick search if you want to implement it you need to seach int he files for $mod_rewrite

I started got several hits in page bb_func_ldisc.php

the rule you need to create will be something similar to the following depending on what it is you want in the extention.

You will need to change the original format of the urls to include the forum title or topic

RewriteRule ^([0-9]+)_([-0-9]+)_([A-Z]+)\.html$ ./index.php?action=vtopic&forum=$1&page=$2&forum=$3

or something along those lines.

good luck if you go ahead with it.

be sure to back up any files before changing, the hardest part will be rewriting the urls to include the forum title, which might require you to access the database or at least modify the database request that obtains creates the original links.

index.php?action=vtopic&forum=$1&page=$2&forum=$3

this is how you want the new extention to be before mod rewrite. adding the forum title to the end should not cause any problems with minibb.

sorry scrap that change it to forumname

index.php?action=vtopic&forum=$1&page=$2&forumname=$3

RewriteRule ^([0-9]+)_([-0-9]+)_([A-Z]+)\.html$ ./index.php?action=vtopic&forum=$1&page=$2&forumname=$3

so you need to update the database request to pull forum title then put it in a variable throw it on the end of the mod rewrite creation in minibb and you are done.

I leave this part on you guys... this is possible to implement, but we will not include it in official release, just because - what you will do if your topic contains non-English characters? Do not forget that English is not the only language in this world.

Team

Is it ok if I change "{$main_url}/{$forum}_{$topic}_" to "{$main_url}/{$forum}/{$topic}/" It looks more url-like to me.

Moony: then you also need to change a lot within the scripts. Search for $mod_rewrite and find necessary scripts to edit.

When using mod_rewrite you only get to use these...

* List of topics: [FORUM_ID]_[PAGE].html
* List of threads: [FORUM_ID]_[TOPIC_ID]_[PAGE].html

[FORUM_ID] and [TOPIC_ID] and [PAGE]

Are these the only variables than can be used? Is it not possible to use the forum title and post title within it?

What about titles containing non-English characters? Russian? Chinese? Japanese? English is not the only one language on earth.

We have international software, and the digits are the only one method of implementing it.

In general, you should also prove why you need it... we have already discussed it before many times, and nobody is able to prove, why our mod_rewrite URLs are less important than if they contain text.

?