vBSEO is a beautiful piece of software

I just installed vBSEO on my Big-Board general discussion forum. And I must say, i'm not only impressed, I am excited that vBSEO does exactly what I was hoping it would. vBSEO allows me to cut down the urls on my forum to levels no other software on the market allows. You see, i'm of the opinion that /keyword-in-url.html being beneficial is a fallacy, so i'm running a test. And the power of vBSEO is letting me do just that. Some examples of my urls:

Forums: General Discussion - Living With Style Forums

Threads: Celebrity Autobiographies - Living With Style Forums

Those are perfect! I can't think of a better way to link to the 332,052nd thread on a forum. I'm still playing around with all the features, but having the ability to do that makes vBSEO worth every penny. Well, if my theory is correct, that is

Hahah, thanks. When do I get to learn the secret handshake?

Hi Juan,

Originally Posted by Juan Muriente

Those are uber-cool mega-consistent-sexy-vbseo'ed URL s David - I'm tempted to include them under the cp presets for all to use

You *may* want to make sure that my theory is correct first. I'm about 99% sure it is, but i'd hate to be the one who caused the downfall of hundreds of forums across the internet All I know is, if key-words-in-url add any kind of positive weighting in the SE algorithms, then those who wrote them should be fired. That would be so very sloppy for technology that has progressed this far.

Originally Posted by Juan Muriente

Thank-you for sharing this with us and welcome aboard.

Thank YOU for creating software powerful enough to let me test what i've been wanting to for quite awhile now. I forsee a day when the url of the page you're at isn't even visible on the screen. It is a logical step in the evolution of the net.

Originally Posted by Juan Muriente

Edit: Alert! Alert!- Inconsistent URLs found for your 'print' type pages:
Living With Style Forums - Celebrity Autobiographies

You should change your 'Printthread' URL Format' to something like:
and your Multiple Page 'Printthread' URL Format to:

Thanks for checking things out for me They're all rel no followed so I didn't bother to play with them, but for consistency sake, i'll change them now. Gracias!

Originally Posted by Ace Shattock

Wooohoo! Welcome aboard David!!

*feels the love*

Ok, I admit it. All this other stuff is just a cover story. I'm actually here so I can more efficiently stalk you.

*swoon*

Welcome aboard David. I can't wait to see the results for your newly vBSEO-enabled forum.

Originally Posted by DChapman

Forums: General Discussion - Living With Style Forums

Threads: Celebrity Autobiographies - Living With Style Forums

BTW - Did you consider placing your threads into the forum sub-directory:

HTML Code:

http://forums.livingwithstyle.com/f2/332052.html

instead of

HTML Code:

http://forums.livingwithstyle.com/332052.html

It's just an option to organize related threads into a virtual hierarchical structure.

The most important thing is to choose a format, make sure everything is consistent, and then lock it in and allow vBSEO to do its job.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

Welcome aboard David.

Thanks. I'm actually just here to stalk Ace though.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

BTW - Did you consider placing your threads into the forum sub-directory:

HTML Code:

http://forums.livingwithstyle.com/f2/332052.html

instead of

HTML Code:

http://forums.livingwithstyle.com/332052.html

It's just an option to organize related threads into a virtual hierarchical structure.

Yes. I didn't for four reasons:

1. Websites should be built for PEOPLE. People don't care about hierarchal structure. They do care about simplicity though. If you need to remember a thread for some reason, it's much easier to remember /43943.html than /f38/43943.html.

2. I forsee a day (hopefully not too far off) when url's don't matter anyway. If I access data on the net 10 years from now and am seeing a url at the top of every page, i'm going to be REALLY mad about the lack of innovation going on.

3. Ever notice anything interesting regarding ordering when running the Google site command?

4. If it's good enough for Google then i'll jump off the bridge too.

I of course could be wrong. But you don't get ahead if you're following everyone else

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

Probably a not a big difference between the two in terms of usability. With the 10/100s of threads people visit, numeric thread IDs as file names aren't all that memorable, although easier to jot down on a postit. I remember with bookmarks mostly... which reminds me that I have to clean those up and sort them soon.

Agreed. But with this new change, I personally now have the urls of my three favorite threads on LWS memorized. They're those kind of stories that someone always brings up when you're sitting around with a group of people at a bar. "Hey David, remember that time you got your butt kicked by the devil in jail?" Now I can easily write down the url on cocktail napkins

Will it happen often? Nah. But i'm also one of those guys who keeps a fire extinguisher in his vehicle just in case

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

I guess this is what AOL was originally trying with their keywords. I'm not sure how addressing will change in the future, but [for search engine crawling/indexing purposes] I'm sure the topic will still be relevant. The postal system has been around for awhile, and even with Google Maps, we still can't seem to shake those darn street addresses and zip codes. Kidding. Actually I think there is a lot of opportunity for an innovator to come up with a new concept in Web addressing for usability.

I don't think urls are going to go away for a LONG time. But I think it's not that far off (i'd guess 3-5 years) before they're no longer visible on the screen. As I type this and look at the top of my monitor, the url is there. As technologies improve, I would hope that something like that could be relegated to the backend. I know none of those sci-fi movies I watch show url's on them

A challenge for you. In your browser go to View > Toolbars > Navigation toolbar. Uncheck it. Operate that way for a week. It's not *that* bad. With a few innovations, it won't be needed anymore.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

Yes - we're also inclined to watch Google for clues.
Google.com: Dynamic vs. Static URLs

In my opinion, a lot of that is dated. From their page:

Originally Posted by Google

Basic optimization starts with listing relevant keywords in your metatags

Heheh. That's just one example of course. I'm now realizing that I didn't have to add the .html at the end of my urls though.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

Agreed. That's why Juan was so insistentent on building vBSEO from the ground up with a full set of configuration options and lots of built in flexibility.

As my grandpappy would always say, "You done good".

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

Keep us posted on how you do. I know there are others that have virtual directories for sub-forums with thread URLs at root level. Anyone want to offer some insight into how this scenario has worked for you?

Shall do. I would HOPE that is makes no difference. I know if I was writing the algorithms it wouldn't. I guess we'll find out soon enough

Originally Posted by DChapman

Shall do. I would HOPE that is makes no difference. I know if I was writing the algorithms it wouldn't. I guess we'll find out soon enough

Too bad they wouldn't just make their crawling/indexing/ranking algos visible source.

Originally Posted by Joe Ward

Too bad they wouldn't just make their crawling/indexing/ranking algos visible source.

Hahah. I've always been curious how many people at Google have full access to their algos. We're currently developing a reasonably sophisticated set of algorithms that will be tightly guarded. I can only imagine the security surrounding Google's.

Originally Posted by DChapman

3. Ever notice anything interesting regarding ordering when running the Google site command?

4. If it's good enough for Google then i'll jump off the bridge too.

I of course could be wrong.

I do think you're onto somethin DC, I can't wait to see what comes of it Keep it up! I knew there had to be some rationale why your site wasn't using keywords in the URLs.

I wanted to drop in for a quick update. Reindexing of my site is going well. Naturally, traffic dropped off the face of the earth for awhile but that was to be expected. Google is purging my old content and showing the new. What's especially nice is my old rankings are coming back even with the keyword-in-url.html removed:

emo hair - Google Search

Google is also absolutely eating up the tags

So far, so good vBSEO!