vBSEO 3.3.0 Gold Released

**Juan Muriente** · 04-01-2009 05:45 PM

Yes - Full compatibility with vBulletin 3.8.x. That is just the start...

vBSEO 3.3 is now GOLD and has been activated in your Downloads. Inside the box, there are some powerful new features you will definitely love including "Virtual HTML Display".

Virtual HTML Display is designed to max out your SEO for vBulletin "Notices". The notices feature is very important since it allows you to broadcast an important message at the top of every page of your forum (similar to the very popular modification: Welcome Headers by Ted S). Before vBSEO 3.3, when your notices were activated globally, they would have a potential *negative* impact on your SEO... taking up your top text space, skewing your C2C (Content to Code) ratio, and interfering with your search text snippets, etc.

Our new VHDisplay feature solves the issue fully. Hit the switch in your vBSEO Control Panel to activate it instantly, and your notices will instantly go virtual, using a special Javascript technique so that it is available for your visitors without hurting your SEO.
VHDisplay has the same effect as converting your welcome messages and notices to images. However, converting to an image can be time consuming and does not always play nice with fluid forum styles. Virtual HTML Display means you never have to worry about this issue again. The vBSEO Team has created VHD to continue to max out your SEO.
Now your communication ability with vB Notices is maintained without any sacrifice to your SEO!

Please check out the complete list of new features, updates, and fixes below. We have added some interesting new twists to some of our core features, and we even added a new feature to further maximize your link consensus. In fact, we expect vBSEO 3.3 to help further accelerate long tail search hits for your forum!

If you have any questions or require assistance during your installation, the vBSEO Total Support Team is standing by to assist you. Please open a ticket if you need help.

SPECIAL PROMOTION: To reward you for your patience, while we completed our Total Quality Review of vBSEO 3.3, we are offering you a limited time discount promotion for new vBSEO customers and for those of you ready to get your next vBSEO license. Click this link ASAP, before your promo ends:

vBSEO 3.3.0 Promotion - Limited Time

NOTE: If your vBSEO license is currently expired you must renew before installing vBSEO 3.3.0 GOLD on your forum. Just click the 'Renew' link next to your forum URL in your license list.

NEW FEATURE: Virtual HTML Display: Our coolest new vBSEO 3.3 feature. Activate it to max out your long tail SEO. Boosts your C2C ratio, and increased the relevancy of each of your pages, by converting vBulletin notices to JavaScript powered versions that do not interfere with the search engine bots. Can be configured to apply with guests only or all users.

NEW FEATURE: Canonical URLs: Support added for rel="canonical" attribute supported by Google, Yahoo, and MSN search engines. While vBSEO's link consensus prevents duplicate content, the canonical URLs attribute is useful for sorted versions of forumdisplay, social group discussions, member and blog lists, etc, to provide an extra level of redundancy.

NEW FEATURE: Enhanced Google Segmentation Tracking: Using the more advanced "Enhanced Segmentation" option, you can track and segment your traffic (using Google Analytics) into every different user group available on your forum. View stats specifically for your guests, members, moderators, customers, and every other primary user group.

NEW FEATURE: LinkBack Hits: The number of visits for each URL in your LinkBacks table is now displayed (for selected User Groups only). Now you will not only know who is linking to you, but also how many visitors they are actually sending at a glance.

NEW FEATURE: Thread Prefix Support (Beta): Configure your URL formats, including the thread prefix (if desired).

Since this new feature is currently considered Beta, it must be enabled within the config_vbseo.php file manually.

PHP Code:

 define('VBSEO_URL_THREAD_PREFIX',      1);

 define('VBSEO_URL_THREAD_PREFIX_NAME', 1);

Enable the options by setting them to 1.
The first option enables thread prefixes within the URLs.
The second option allows you to use the prefix title instead of just the prefix ID.

NEW FEATURE: Acronym Expansion for Guests Only: This allows you to replace acronyms for guests, but leave the original text unchanged for registered users.

This feature is enabled within the config_vbseo.php file manually:

PHP Code:

     define('VBSEO_ACRONYM_GUESTS',                0);

Set it to 1 to activate it.

Note: In order to ensure that link consensus is maintained for both guests and members, this feature will NOT apply to the URLs. Any acronym expansions you have set up will still be applied to the URLs.

NEW FEATURE: Google Analytics Virtual Folders: vBSEO 3.3 helps you make your Google Analytics reporting even more valuable to you.

With vBSEO you have always been provided with the option of setting of a hierarchical structure, where each sub-forum appears as a separate folder, and each thread stored within it.
However, for users that do NOT use this type of structure, this new Analytics Virtual Folder feature allows your stats to file each hit as thought it were within a "folder" even if you don't use them!
By doing so, you can easily use Analytics to find out which of your sub-forums is the top performer, as well as very specific stats for every sub-forum.

This feature is enabled within the config_vbseo.php file manually:

PHP Code:

     define('VBSEO_ADD_ANALYTICS_VIRTUAL',  1);

Set it to 1 to activate it.

NEW FEATURE: Dynamic Meta Tags Option for vBulletin Tag/Showpost Pages: Providing dynamic META tags on vBulletin's tag and showpost pages helps to prevent an issue with "duplicate page descriptions" in the Google Webmaster Control panel.

NEW FEATURE: Relevant Replacements + Thread Tags: RRs can now be configured to include thread tags.

UPDATE: vBSEO's .htaccess file has been updated for vBSEO 3.3:

Code:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(admincp/|modcp/|cron)
 RewriteRule ^((archive/)?(.*\.php(/.*)?)?)$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]

Replaced by:

Code:

RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !(admincp/|modcp/|vbseo_sitemap/|cron)
 RewriteRule ^((archive/)?(.*\.php(/.*)?))$ vbseo.php [L,QSA]

UPDATE: Update to ISAPI Rewrite instructions:

Code:

RewriteCond URL ^/(?!attachments|iconimages|members).*

UPDATE:Social Group Rewrites: Full compatibility with Social Group URLs including:

Social Group Homepage
Social Group Search URLs
Social Group Subscription URLs
Social Group Category URLs
Social Group Discussion URLs

UPDATE : Social Group Homepage has been renamed as Social Group List.

UPDATE: Albums Rewrites: New rewrite options added for albums including:

Albums Homepage URL
Member Album Pagination.
Option to globally disable Album rewrites.

UPDATE: vBulletin Blog Rewrites: New rewrite options added for blog URLs including:

Blog custom pages
Blog latest entries
Blog Tags
Blog Tags Home

UPDATE: Global Blog Category pagination

UPDATE: "Posts Per Page" Link Consensus update ensures that users viewing your threads with a custom "posts per page" setting, will still build link consensus for you if they post a link anywhere on the Web.

vBSEO ensures that anyone who clicks the link created by the user, will be directed to the correct page on your forum, using the standard "posts per page" setup.

UPDATE: Facebook icon for social networking feature updated.
UPDATE: When mysqli type is selected with persistent connections enabled, this is not supported by pconnect. vBSEO has added support for the mysqli/persistent connections configuration.
UPDATE: LinkBack Keyword Ignore list is now an exact match only to prevent partial matches of unrelated keywords. Both singular & plural versions of keywords must be entered if both are to be blocked successfully.
UPDATE: Google Segmentation Tracking Code has been improved and it now successfully tracks member and guest activity.
UPDATE: Replace thread URLs posted into Social Group Discussion messages with the thread title.

FIX: Member blog pagination. Page 2 onwards not going to next page.
FIX: Project Tools link in vBulletin archive not directing to a valid URL.
FIX: Submitting "Quick Reply" when "Linear - Newest first" thread reading option is set, caused user to direct to page 2 of the thread, not the last page containing the new post.
FIX: After a search, go to post redirect links not redirecting if the post is on page 2+ of the thread.
FIX: When using an anchor in privacy policy URL, the site duplicates the anchor (i.e. repeats it twice).
FIX: Wrong custom string sample listed in "Social Groups Home Pagination" configuration: groups%page%.html
FIX: Redirect loop error for groups, tags, albums for specific server environment requiring update to functions_vbseo_url.php:

Code:

Redirect Loop
 
 Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete.      
 
 The browser has stopped trying to retrieve the requested item. The site is redirecting the request in a way that will never complete.

FIX: Page not found error when user clicks on a link to their own blog.
FIX: Blog entry comments pagination not working.
FIX: Group sorting not rewriting; reversing sort order not working.
FIX: Group image rewriting not working when member profile rewrites are disabled.
FIX: Error with last post on threads with a large number of replies. Code change added to functions_vbseo_createurl.php
FIX: "Go to last post" in threaded mode not working.
FIX: On new reply, page does not scroll to anchor (anchor on URL missing).
FIX: Clicking "Preview" when editing a new post within advanced view, the preview does not display, and instead goes back to the editing screen without it.
FIX: 404 pages for links to tags containing slash (/) characters.
FIX: Updated link to FURL to contain www. + furl.net, instead of just furl.net.
FIX: Product file not importing for vBulletin installation using .phtml extension.
FIX: Some blog URLs resulting in 404 page, or directing to main blog page incorrectly.
FIX: Google Analytics code in thread mode.
FIX: Require() error when clicking on last post.
FIX: Error in template vbseo_linkbackbit fixed.
FIX: functions_vbseo_db.php updated for master/slave connections on multiple server environments.
FIX: Archive rewrites caused a redirect loog in php-cgi. A fix has been applied to prevent this.
FIX: Attachment forum_path rewrite option fix.
FIX: Bug in visitor message Permalinks has been corrected.
FIX: Bug in vBSEO CP missing settings corrected.
FIX: Dead URL in stopwords have been updated.
FIX: Attachment Alt Tag attribute Format UTF-8 bug has been corrected
FIX: A bug that occurs on multiple database server (master slave) is corrected.
FIX: A problem that caused a malfunction with vBSEO and vBulletin 3.8 RC2 is corrected.
FIX: Bug in blog categories is corrected.
FIX: Bug in postbit display is corrected.
FIX: Bug that occurred with Snowball modification is corrected.
FIX: When postid was included Google Translate (for Permalinks with postid targets), a 404 error occurred.

Download vBSEO 3.3.0

Important: vBSEO 3.3.0 requires an update to your .htaccess file.