I'm running vBulletin v 3.7 and I've seen a couple of forums with the URLs such as : www.thisforum.com/forumtopicblah231/this-is-a-seo-url.html How do i get this URL, the defaut for posts is just http://www.thisforum.com/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=23189
All forums have some kind of plugin to do this. But I personally think it's not needed. I think it looks kind of crappy/spammy and I even think it can harm your site (I've read about it somewhere). I use default URL's for my SMF forum and I rank pretty good. Forget the "seo" friendly URL's - it's useless. Look at DP's urls, they're default and DP constantly pops up in serps.
Of course domain age helps. But count the number of webmaster forums that DO have seo friendly URL's and have been around longer than DP. I'm just saying that seo friendly url's do not play this ultimate role like so many people like to think so. It's over rated and the "benefit" of the url's is over exaggerated. in my opinion.. hxxp://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1059661 looks better than: hxxp://forums.digitalpoint.com/general-chat/lol-hey-guys-can-you-suggest-me-plz/
I was wondering yesterday about this very question too that has been posed, so thanks to Ashley for such an informative and useful answer / reply - rep added since you and the OP have both together saved me lots of time. I appreciate your help! Kindest regards Mark - http://TheA1Forum.com