Thread Titles Change Often

[jca]

Our forum is constantly changing the titles of threads (renaming, merging, etc.) and there is a lot of thread linking (both from other threads and outside sites).

How will this effect vbSEO?

I guess I'm not clear what happens when someone links to a thread via a vbSEO'd url that changes at a later time. Is it all ID number based? Does vbSEO keep track of every version of the thread through topic title changes, merges, etc.?

We're about to break thousands of links when we move our board from Invision to vBulletin -- can vbSEO do any kind of (impex) old import ID to vBulletin thread ID conversions via redirects, etc.?

[briansol]

If you change titles a lot, i suggest using a numeric non-heirarchial re-write.

site.com/f123/
and
site.com/t456/

even through thread 456 is in forum 123, you can move the thread to forum 789 and rename it to some-new-title but site.com/t456/ is still the access url to it


as for invision to vB, you're probably not going to be happy. Basically, if you ever deleted ANYTHING, everything is off.
1 post, 1 thread, 1 user... all the id numbers will be different.

So while you COULD with vbseo do a index.php?showtopic=123 to showthread.php?t=123 via vbseo, topic 123 from IPB probably won't be showthread 123 anymore.

the best thing to do would be to set up a custom 404 page as outlined here: Create a Custom vBulletin "404 Page Not Found" Page, and direct vBSEO to use it. and include a search form in your custom error message so that hopefully people can still find what they are looking for.

[jca]

If you change titles a lot, i suggest using a numeric non-heirarchial re-write.

Well, we'll need the thread titles in the url -- that would be the whole point of using vbSEO in our case. Does it keep track of urls that change? (Will they all work even if they aren't the current version of the thread's title-based url?)

as for invision to vB, you're probably not going to be happy. Basically, if you ever deleted ANYTHING, everything is off.

Yeah, the url redirect would entail looking at the threads import id in the database and converting that to the new vbulletin thread id url. I believe this sort of thing was once included in the vBulletin impex importer (a 404.php script), but was removed and is no longer available. I was wondering if vbSEO could be use in some way to convert those import ids that impex adds to the MySQL table.

[jca]

Anyone have any more info on the above questions?

Is there online documentation showing the different thread title/id url rewriting options and settings?

[Brandon Sheley]

Use the thread-id URL, instead of the thread-title
problem fixed

Thread titles aren't an important factor with vbseo, removing the duplicate content that vBulletin has is the key point with vbseo
and as long as your current url's have a thread ID in them, vbseo will redirect all pages to the new pages.

[Joe Ward]

I would have to ask why you rename so frequently?

If it is because users provided bad titles, then I wouldn't worry. I would still use the keywords in the URL. Chances are with really bad titles the content is less likely to get indexed or get links to it until you rename it.

I think it's great that you proactively manage your content in such a way.

[jca]

I would have to ask why you rename so frequently?

We run a fairly active question/answer type of forum, so we get a lot of "duplicate" questions (previously covered) that need to be merged into existing threads or renamed in some way -- this happens on a daily basis.

The Google-bot visits often, so there is no telling what version(s) of these thread titles would get indexed. So my question is, if Google indexes a vbSEO'd title link url that is changed minutes/hours/days later, will that old link be broken when it comes up in a Google search index result and someone tries to follow that link?

[Joe Ward]

No - the links will not be broken as long as you use the thread ID in your URL format. vBSEO will automatically redirect the users (and search engines) to the new location of your content even when moved or merged.

[Hmmm]

So a changed thread title does not affect the actual URL?

[briansol]

It depends on your re-write format.

if you have the title in the url, then yes, the url WILL change.
it is, however, 301'ed to the new location.

[Hmmm]

Ok, so regardless of changes of the titles they are reditected to the correct ones.

So there is not a settign that maks the thread titles be the one it was when it was created, regardless changed thread title?

Isnt this bad for the crawlability, for for exampel a higly visited thread?

[briansol]

if you plan to edit threads often, it's best to use an id- based re-write.

i use this style on http://www.conflictingviews.com/

[Hmmm]

But that would be bad out for SEO efficiency.

So change thread titles within a day from thread creation is maybe best, not more.

if you plan to edit threads often, it's best to use an id- based re-write.

i use this style on ConflictingViews

[Joe Ward]

If the page is not getting traffic partly because of the title, then changing the title *at any time* is actually "increasing SEO efficiency".

[Hmmm]

Thats true. But it can have traffic already, and needs topic change,; that causes a redirect. That might be bad for SEO, right?

Anyhow, Ill just might tru VBSEO.

Is it reversible? And isthere any reasdon it would not work? With that I mena lower unique visotrs aroudn 2 months after implementation,

If the page is not getting traffic partly because of the title, then changing the title *at any time* is actually "increasing SEO efficiency".