vBSEO 2.0 RC6 Released

Hello all.

I would like to start by apologizing to those of you who were expecting a RC5-b release announcement. We had promised a vBSEO interim release to fix minor bugs reported with RC5. However, Oleg managed to complete one of our most important new features to date: "Custom Rewrite Rules"

Here is a summary of updates included in vBSEO 2.0 RC6:

(1) "Custom Rewrite Rules (Beta)" feature added to vBSEO Admin CP. This allows users to define rewriting rules for any dynamic pages contained within their forum root or sub-directories. Basically, anything that is not already re-written by vBSEO can be converted to custom defined static versions without altering .htaccess files or editting templates. While it is intended for more advanced users, it's regular expression syntax is very straightforward. Users will also be able to copy-and-paste solutions provided by others in our forums. One of our testers (Acers) had access to an pre-release version of RC6 and has already defined rewrite rules for the vBArticles hack - This is in use now at his site (http://www.techenclave.com/forums/articles.php):

Custom Rewrite Rules for vBArticles (by Acer):

Code:

'articles\.php\?action=viewarticle&artid=(\d+)&page=(\d+)' => 'viewarticle-$1-$2.html'
 
'articles\.php\?action=viewarticle&artid=(\d+)' => 'showarticle-$1.html'
 
'articles\.php\?action=viewcat&catid=(\d+)' => 'showcategory-$1.html'
 
'articles\.php\?action=submitarticle' => 'submitarticle.html'
 
'articles\.php\?action=viewfav' => 'viewfav.html'
 
'articles\.php\?action=rss' => 'rss.html'
 
'articles\.php\?action=authorlist' => 'authorlist.html'
 
'articles\.php\?action=printarticle&artid=(\d+)' => 'printarticle-$1.html'
 
'articles\.php\?action=sendarticle&artid=(\d+)' => 'sendarticle-$1.html'
 
'articles\.php\?action=unmarkasfav&artid=(\d+)' => 'unmarkfav-$1.html'
 
'articles\.php\?action=markasfav&artid=(\d+)' => 'markfav-$1.html'
 
'articles\.php\?action=viewallimg&artid=(\d+)&title=([^&]+)' => 'viewimages-$1-title-$2.html'

Note: We encourage other hack/mod/plugin developers to provide other users with "Custom Rewrite Rules" that can be used in vBSEO. If you are a vB hacker you should include this information in the installation instructions and release announcements for your hack. We will also create a forum on exclusively for the exchange of custom rewrite rules for the the various hacks/mods/plugins that are available.

This is a giant step forward for vBSEO with broad implications for future feature development. You can expect even more exciting additions in the coming months.

(2) vB pages display faster when vBSEO is installed. Added an option to remove unnecessary whitespace characters and HTML comments from the output. This boosts the C2C (Content to Code) ratio for forum pages and reduces filesizes for less bandwidth and quicker downloading for both search engine spiders and web users. vB pages are now displayed quicker.

- The new 'Cleanup HTML Code' feature:

• Removes unnecessary whitespaces (within html tags) and
• Strips off all HTML comments from the output

This option actually adds a few thousandths of a second (0.00X sec.) of processing time to script execution. However, since the filesize of the page is reduced significantly, the bandwidth required to transfer the file from server to web user (or search engine crawler) is reduced. Depending on the size and complexity of the page that is being output, the speed increase for page delivery can be from fractions of a second to several seconds. Note: Of course, the time saved also depends on the speed of the user connection, and time savings are more prominent at lower speed connections.

- While our goal was to boost the C2C ratio for all pages, the performance increase was a fantastic side-effect.

- When Googlebot and the gang start pulling down your content, they could (in theory) keep total bandwidth consumption in mind so as not to overload your server. Having smaller filesizes on average, means that more of your webpages could be indexed before they decide to give your server a breather. (Thank God bandwidth is cheap nowadays!)

/* Note: Those of you who have already installed whitespace, HTML comments, and/or gzipping mods will be familiar with the large performance gains. */

(3) When enabled, the link to "vBSEO Control Panel" is now visible only to Admins (User Group 6).

(4) Added an option in vBSEO Admin CP to include/exclude the CP password when exporting XML backup files of configuration settings.

(5) Fixed compatibility issues with vBadvanced CMPS v2.0 RC2 (vB 3.5).

(6) Fixed compatibility issues with vBadvanced Gallery v1.0.1 (vB 3.5).

(7) Fixed compatibility issues with the Coppermine Gallery v1.0.1 (vB 3.5).

(8) Corrected issue with "new post in thread" (related to cookie storage in 3.0.3/3.0.7 - and DB storage in 3.5.x).

(9) Provided a performance enhancement configuration, related to the [forum_path] variable for resource depleted forums (or those with many forums/sub-forums).

(10) Added a config option for "File Not Found" requests handling to allow a custom script to be included (other options are: (a) redirect to homepage, or (b) send 404 HTTP code).

(11) Variable names changed to avoid conflicts with other applications.

(12) Fixed issue with XHTML Compliance related to non-urlencoded ambersands (&).

You may now commence RC6 testing and enjoy the new "Custom Rewrite Rules" feature! Please post your rewrite rules to our forums so that other users can become familiar with the process and/or use your rules to rewrite URLs for installed mods you have in common with them.

Download Location: - UPDATED TESTER SIGNUP AND DOWNLOAD PROCEDURE
Testers may download vBSEO from their User Control Panel at the http://www.vbseo.com forums. Under the "Miscellaneous" section, there will be a link to "Download vBSEO".

Note: You must be a member of the forum now to download vBSEO. If you have not yet registered, please do so. You will then find a link in the "Miscellaneous" section of User CP that says "Become a Tester". Click that link and complete the process to register for the vBSEO testing team.

vBSEO User CP: http://www.vbseo.com/usercp/

Install Instructions:
(1) Backup your .XML settings file (through 'forums/vbseo_cp.php')
(2) Upload all the files in the '/upload' folder
(3) Restore your previous settings by uploading your backup .XML file

Discuss this Announcement Here

Juan

P.S. Please feel free to congratulate Oleg on making the "Custom Rewrite Rules (Beta)" feature available so soon.

/*Note: Our original request for vBSEO testers has been updated at vBulletin.org. To see the updated post, please visit vBSEO - vBulletin SEO (Search Engine Optimization) - Testers Needed for RC6 */

Discuss the announcement 'vBSEO 2.0 RC6 Released' in this thread.

Note: Please do not post bug reports on this thread.

I am blown away by this mod. I love the ability to do the custom urls. Thank you

its indeed most stunning,,
Btw my board is down for time being as i am updating some new features. Will open it. So that demo of articles won't work just yet :P

I have my userpage links working and my quiz ones in progress. The only thing I wish is that it could pick up the text of the link somehow, which would allow us to put quiz titles, journal titles and such in the links like threads are done by vbseo.

RC6 is running now on my forum. The update works fine and at the first view I can not find any bugs. If there are any, I'll report this as shortly as I can.

Juan,

I'm not able to download vbSEO, the system says I'm not registered??!!

Any help?

I am blown away by this mod. I love the ability to do the custom urls. Thank you

Amykhar - I am very pleased that you like what we've done with vBSEO - especially coming from an accomplished vB hacker. Actually, I am planning on implementing your homepage hack for one of my other forums. Maybe I will be the first to have it vBSEO-ed... of course, with the new "Custom Rewrite Rules" feature, you will probably win the race! Thank-you for your kind words.

Btw my board is down for time being as i am updating some new features.

Ajay - You were supposed to be one of my showcase sites! We can't have any down time. Kidding.

Originally Posted by amykhar

I have my userpage links working and my quiz ones in progress. The only thing I wish is that it could pick up the text of the link somehow, which would allow us to put quiz titles, journal titles and such in the links like threads are done by vbseo

Ok, I am going to add this to my task list. We are very busy preparing for official release right now, but we will make it happen for you.

Originally Posted by SEO Report

Juan,

I'm not able to download vbSEO, the system says I'm not registered??!!

Any help?

Please try again. You just completed the *new* (forum integrated) tester application. I thought I had already added you to the database. Let me know if you have any further trouble.

going to install now w00t

Excellent job!

Works great, thanks a lot.

Wow this custom 404 page helped us alot for the overal compliance of the site it's being tested on.

PHP Code:

header("HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found"); 


is something that should be in that custom page, though, else the search engines will probally still see it as a valid page.

Also Oleg great work on the custom rewrite rules. Will be testing it this week for the "Links and Files Database" hack and some additional rules from our .htaccess.

The compression doesn't even mess with the [code] tag, like an old (on the fly) template compressor hack did.


Keep up the great work!

working so smoothly, no problems at all