[How-to] Use vBSEO's Forum Slugs - Custom Sub-Forum URLs

[Michael Biddle]

Forum Slugs

With vBSEO's forum slugs you can specify how you want the name of any sub-forum to appear in your URLs.

Why would I need a feature like this?

You could use this feature for a few reasons.

1. Want a shorter URL even though you have a longer forum name.
2. Avoid duplicate forum titles (PS3 Games->Releases and XBOX Games->Releases would both link to yourdomain.com/releases/topic-name-thread_id.html, which would cause an issue)

To fix this, you can set a new name for your forum without changing the actual forum name.

vBSEO 3.3.2 and lower
The format is 'forum_id' => 'new-name-for-forum'

To set this setting, you will need to manually open your configuration file from ./includes/config_vbseo.php

Find:

$vbseo_forum_slugs = array(
    ); 

Change to:

$vbseo_forum_slugs = array(
'1' => 'forum-title',
'2' => 'another-forum-title'
    ); 

-------------
vBSEO 3.5+
On vb4/vbseo 3.5, slugs have moved to within the Control Panel it self instead of a code edit.

You can simply use

1 => 'forum-title'

in the CP box (note, no quotes around the forumID side anymore)

[f4vn]

I try this but it doesn`t work for me.

$vbseo_forum_slugs = array(
250 => 'bikini-girls'
    ); 

http://www.free4vn.org/f250/

[Michael Biddle]

Please open a ticket with AdminCP, FTP, and your vbseocp.php password.

[f4vn]

I opened the ticket.Please check it !

Thanks,

[JohnM]

With vbSEO 3.5 and vB4.0 which section in the CP would you need to put this in?

Custom Rewrite Rules?



TY,
John

[Michael Biddle]

General Settings->vBSEO Options->Advanced Settings

[motorcycletalk]

Hey guys, need some help on my forum slugs. Nice word for that by the way. Forum is Canadian Motorcycle Talk Forum. I have entered this in the control panel and hit save:

2 => 'introduce-yourself'
6 => 'motorcycles-for-sale'
12 => 'atv-for-sale'
13 => 'cruiser-for-sale'
14 => 'dirt-bike-for-sale'
15 => 'harley-for-sale'
16 => 'scooter-for-sale'
17 => 'sport-bike-for-sale'

But nothing changes. Ideas? Thank you.

[motorcycletalk]

One more thing I wanted to add. I want the urls to also change here in the sitemap. Any help is appreciated. I must of missed a setting or something I am thinking.

[Mert Gökçeimam]

Hello ,

Forum Slugs only work when you don't have id in forum rewrite rules. If you have id in your rewrite rules Slugs will not work.

[motorcycletalk]

Hi Mert,

Thanks for the reply. Now the question, how do I remove the ID so the rest of this works? When I installed VBSEO, it automatically changed things to the ID's by default. Your help is appreciated. Thank you.

Neil Ghuman
www.motorcycletalk.ca

[Brian Cummiskey]

You will need to alter the preset or go into the advanced settings tab of the forum url group and edit ALL of the forum urls accordingly.

Note, this is not recommended for established sites as all your urls will change.

[motorcycletalk]

Forum is brand new with 0 posts. Have a look. Motorcycle Talk Forum

I did some major changes to my liking, tested stuff out and it works awesome. Thanks for your help Brian. You guys rock at VBSEO.

Over and out.

[tsak76]

what happenes with forum urls that are already listed in google ? do they 301 redirect the the slug url ?

edit. it doesnt it gives error doesnt exist. so why whould someone use those ?

[Brian Cummiskey]

Renamed Category and forums - redirect - vBulletin SEO Forums

[tsak76]

ok, i still dont understand why to use the slug and not to edit the forum name ? whats the benefit. does is it add to SEO having Forum name and forum.html (slug stuff) instead of Forum name and forum-name.html ?