Getting Started Help

Howdy,

Just installed first license today. All seems to be working. But, there seems to be a zillion options. Is there a document/thread somewhere that is an overall admin/feature guide?

My biggest question relates to the archive vs the main content with the new vbseo optimized URLs.

- I assume we don't want Google indexing duplicate content? Do I just turn off the archive in vbAdmin and tell the google Sitemap utility not to add /archive/ links to the sitemaps?

- The archive is nice because it puts the entire text of the thread on a very simple page w/o all of the FAT HTML and images. I understand that the new vbseo URLs will help with page rank because keywords will be right in the URL, BUT will I lose because now google will have to read multiple pages to view the entire thread PLUS the added expense of all the FAT HTML?

- Does VBSEO detect spiders and optimize the output accordingly? If yes, can I program my own USER-AGENT? I have my own search spider that indexes my sites and I would like it to get the "search engine view."

Also, what is recommended for the robots.txt file?

TIA!

Hello David and welcome to vBSEO

My biggest question relates to the archive vs the main content with the new vbseo optimized URLs.

- I assume we don't want Google indexing duplicate content? Do I just turn off the archive in vbAdmin and tell the google Sitemap utility not to add /archive/ links to the sitemaps?

Many would suggest to set this option depending on the fact that you monetize (or not) your archive pages. For pure SEO purposes, I recommend leaving this as default, pointing to the actual threads.

- The archive is nice because it puts the entire text of the thread on a very simple page w/o all of the FAT HTML and images. I understand that the new vbseo URLs will help with page rank because keywords will be right in the URL, BUT will I lose because now google will have to read multiple pages to view the entire thread PLUS the added expense of all the FAT HTML?

Very true, that's why it's important that you try to keep your front-end pages as light as possible. vBSEO executes automatic 301 redirects to let Search Engines know your content has been consolidated in 1 location, increasing link consensus towards your deep content.

- Does VBSEO detect spiders and optimize the output accordingly? If yes, can I program my own USER-AGENT? I have my own search spider that indexes my sites and I would like it to get the "search engine view."

vBSEO will never present content based on USER AGENT except for very few instances which have been determined not to be "cloaking". For example, if someone links to one of your threads with the vB 'highlight' feature in the query string like:

Getting Started Help

vBSEO will detect if USER-AGENT is a spider and 301 that user to:

Getting Started Help

Again, the aim here is to maximize link consensus.