Briansol's Ultimate Guide to vBSEO

*Doublepost - server did not respond, at least for me, delete please.

Leo, I wouldn't touch it.

If you're getting indexed already, you shouldn't adjust the rewrite settings.

Originally Posted by briansol

Leo, I wouldn't touch it.

If you're getting indexed already, you shouldn't adjust the rewrite settings.

Alright thanks a lot, Brian! Like I've said earlier, I used parts of your guide to modify my robots.txt and the sitemap generator!

I know you've said not to change the URL rewrite settings but I've only had vbseo installed for a week & currently Google still has a lot of my threads indexed the original vbulletin way. Forum names appear to be indexed but not many threads yet.

I selected 001 - Hierarchic .html type URLs with content relevant forums and threads (Default Settings)
because it was the default. Why is this set as default if so many people including vbseo are recomending no extensions?

Ideally I would want 'directory type URLs with content relevant forums and threads' as my forum names are content relevant.

Is it worth changing now?

I am not vbseo, nor do I work for them. I tried to make that clear in the first post. These are my real-life as a customer suggestions.

All 5 presets have issues. I don't like any of them. The ones that re-write good with no extensions also re-write showpost and print thread.
I've brought it up to change/add to the presets, but due to upgrade issues preset 1 will always be preset 1 which is why i wrote this article in the first place

Even if your forum names are content relevant, what happens if you re-name the forum down the road? changing the title changes the link. That's why I don't like them.

I started a new site, and never did anything with it. It's been my 'dev' area for making products and so forth for other people.
It runs these settings.

And for a site with 0 topics and 0 content (other than test1, test2, test3....) it's incredibly well indexed.
site:uidevelopers.com - Google Search

If you're only a week in, you can probably change it now without any ill effects. Just consider this past week a 'wash', as you will basically be re-starting the whole process all over again.

Really nice bro. Thanks for this wonderful post.

Thanks Brian. I do realise you don't work for vbseo but obviously your opinions are well respected so another preset at the least would be useful.

Having said that I think I may stick with my forum titles in the url as they are very relevant to my forum which is travel related & focuses on one holiday (vacation) resort in Spain. The place name is in the domain name & the forum titles contain keywords such as flights, hotels, restaurants etc. which make good sense combined with thread titles. I found out about vbseo via the forum Affiliate Marketing which I use a lot & regularly find their posts when searching for info on google. Their posts seem to get indexed extremely quickly as well. They appear to have used the default rewrite setting.

I will definitely look at all your other advice as I've already started restricting the sitemap from including less important areas.

Great SEOing brian there on your developers forums! You have a second member now!

hi brain, i change my forum as your guide show.
but, i cant wonder if i need to disable my ShowPost URLs, i have lot
from them , btw: my Relevant Replacements is enabled.
and if them both set and work (Replacements and show post), is the
spiders see that as an duplication urls?
my tags set to zero all time.

Total URLs 209,119 (+569)
Forumdisplay URLs 733 (+3)
Showthread URLs 21,967 (+57)
ShowPost URLs 185,773 (+492)
Archive URLs 352 (-)
Member Profile URLs 0 (-)
Poll Results URLs 0 (-)
Blog Entries URLs 0 (-)
Album URLs 0 (-)
Social Group URLs 0 (-)
Tag URLs 0 (-)

I want to change my URLs to a hierarchy system - I didn't even know that was possible with vBSEO - as that is how my site's linking structure is set up.

I already have it set-up and indexed in Google with the .html extensions. I only have about 77000 indexed pages in Google...so I feel it'll be safe if I change my forum link structure to hierarchy. How can I do this? I want to make sure that the old format is 301 redirected to the new hierarchy system?

Also, I see that you have provided attachments in your post. Is there a need to necessarily make any modifications besides the .htaccess file or can we just download and use your attached files and settings?

@Cupra, I consider showpost to be bloat.
The post text is already in the showthread link. You want the visitors to end up on the FULL thread (with your ads on it) then just the single post pop-up with no navigation or links.

@EGS, It's entirely up to you to change at this time. I probably wouldn't do it with 77k SERP's.

If you do use my file, no htaccess changes are required. The default vbseo file (or what you have running now) will work fine with it.

It is also a good idea to limit usernames to alpha numeric chars only. You can place the following regex into the vB options:
Code:
^(a-zA-Z0-9 \s){3,25}$

This means only letters, numbers, and space characters, 3 to 25 digits in length. By dis-allowing special chars, you can use /[username] in url's without the worry of duplicates, or having to add in the ID to the url.

Can you tell me where I need to edit in the vB options ?

AdminCP->vBulletin Options->User Registration Options->Username Regular Expression

Originally Posted by briansol

@Cupra, I consider showpost to be bloat.
The post text is already in the showthread link. You want the visitors to end up on the FULL thread (with your ads on it) then just the single post pop-up with no navigation or links.

@EGS, It's entirely up to you to change at this time. I probably wouldn't do it with 77k SERP's.

If you do use my file, no htaccess changes are required. The default vbseo file (or what you have running now) will work fine with it.

So INSTEAD of editing .htaccess file we can just import your vBSEO's settings?
And what if we update from old .html link structure to your new page hierarchy system...will those old URLs be 301 SE-friendly redirected to the new linking structure, so that there are no broken links and/or pages?

Threads are auto-301'ed, however forumdisplay are not.

And yes, you can simply import the settings file (make a back up of yours first!!!). Be sure to re-save your key and enter your analytics code, and any thing else custom you may have added such as re-write rules or relevant replacements.