different thread URL structure benefits

[Grumbledook]

I've spent quite a bit of time reading around the forum and after doing searches using the forum search and google I couldn't find a good discussion regarding the various ways to structure your thread urls.

I've got a blog on the root and all the posts are http://domain.com/article-title/

Just put vbulletin into /forums/ and want to get it all configured nicely from the get go

I've taken a look at the presets that come and I understand how they all work.

Now ideally I would like to just use http://domain.com/forums/[thread_title]

I don't like having the thread ID there, though I understand it makes each thread unique. If I did just set it up like that then what would happen should a thread in the future be named with the same title? Is it possible to just have an increment at the end? so it will be [thread_title]-1 and then -2 etc.

If I leave out the forum_title and forum_id then moving the thread from one forum to another will mean that the url will stay the same as well, so moving threads isn't a problem, is this correct?

I can see threads getting moved around more than titles getting changed. If a title is changed then it will likely happen shortly after thread creation to something more meaningful. I'm happy enough that title changes will just have a 301 anyway.

So can I have my forum to have descriptive thread titles without an ID number in the url somewhere?

[Brian Cummiskey]

ID's in threads are a requirement for vbseo to work.
They are optional in other areas but are recommended to avoid any conflicts with special character replacements (ie, $bill and -bill will both turn into -bill).

[Grumbledook]

ok fair enough then

can I use

[thread_title]/[thread_id]
[thread_title]/[thread_id]/Page-[thread_page]

etc ?

do I need trailing slashes on them or will that be put on automatically?

[Brian Cummiskey]

I recommend using the trailing slash. They are not appended automatically and should be added as part of the rule definition.

I would also suggest NOT using a slash between the title and id. SE's view that as a sub-directory, ie, thread id is a content area of thread title. Plus, it puts your content another (un-necessary) level out. The closer to root the content is, the higher weight it will have in the index.

Finally I would also suggest NOT using capital letters in urls, ESPECIALLY on linux servers.

So,

[thread_title]-[thread_id]/
[thread_title]-[thread_id]/page-[thread_page]/

would be my sugested method to use.