PHPBB Mod-Rewrite Question

I am using a mod-rewrite mod on some of my phpbb boards that have it rewrite all the topic,post etc urls to be .html. I got to working on an issue with it today and a question arose.

If someone links to a specific message in my forum from outside, then the search engines catalog that, and even follow it, when they get to my site the url is going to be different. In essence, that page won't get any credit for those links right? It seems like the SE's would have two versions of the page regardless.

I guess my question is, am I harming the ability of specific forum topics/posts to get links, because I am re-writing all the internal urls for search engines?

Clear as mud?

 

Google will show the link with the most backlinks.

 

Okay, but am I hurting the ability of a forum post page to get all of its backlinks because it is split up?

 

By the way I just scrapped the rewriting of urls for my two phpb sites. I think the additional confusion could be potentially harmful and I see nothing currently to support the idea that current search engines have trouble indexing regular topic/posts in phpbb.

If anyone wants to convince me I should go back, please do, I just can't justify it, as I see no upside in rewriting my urls and I can see a downside.

 

I see no upside either. It's unnecessary. It's overkill. And, as you discovered, there are some downsides.

 

the only thing you need to worry about is removing the session ids from your pages, i think its step one of the mod_rewrite mod.

 

I think you mean the able2know SEO mod, right?

 

thats the one couldnt think of the name earlier

 

Glad for that confirmation... Now I just get to watch as the search engines go back to the old html pages. I removed it from the boards but left the mod_rewrite in place to keep them from erroring out.

Anyways... it just didn't seem worth it.. But I do agree on the SID stuff. Definately comes out.

Will be interesting to see how things settle out.

 

Hi -

I've been reading this thread and I wonder if anyone could advise about the following problem I'm having:

- I have a client who has 2 phpbb sites. The phpbb installs are generic, and the client likes this because they can update the phpbbb scripts using cpanel/whm in one step. Now, I KNOW that this is frowned upon by many but it's convenient and that's what they want to do.

- The problem is that this wipes out any SEO mods, etc. The only thing I would really like to get in there is the removal of the SIDS, which I have learned is really the only critical thing (hence my interest in this thread).

I searched around for this mod on the phpbb boards, and there are so many versions of it that I wasn't able to figure out where to begin! Can anyone point me in the right direction to do this mod? I want JUST the SID removal part.

The bonus question: Any way to make this work with the cpanel/WHM update and not get wiped out when they update to a new phpBB version???

Any advice much appreciated!!!
thanks...

 

I just posted it somewhere else in the last few days... all it is, is a single change in the sessions.php file.

# 
#-----[ OPEN ]------------------------------------------ 
#  

includes/sessions.php 

# 
#-----[ FIND ]------------------------------------------ 
# 

$SID = 'sid=' . $session_id; 

# 
#-----[ REPLACE WITH ]------------------------------------------ 
# 

if ( $userdata['session_user_id'] != ANONYMOUS ){ 
   $SID = 'sid=' . $session_id; 
} else { 
   $SID = ''; 
} 

# 
#-----[ SAVE/CLOSE ALL FILES ]------------------------------------------ 
# 
# EoM 

Code (markup):

Can't think of any way to maintain this over cpanel upgrades. You just have to go back in and manually upgrade it each time. A fairly quick update to one file though.

 

wow .. i used the able2know's mod .. and now i am facing the similar issue two pages html and php ...

 

Well, thanks for posting that mod! IT doesn't get simpler than that. Do you know if Easymod would be able to update phpBB without blowing up that mod??

 

I don't think Easymod would have a problem with it but I have never used easymod, so I am not sure. My guess is it should be okay.

 

Just go back to the MOD and reverse the parts that do mod_rewrite. Everything else is fine.

Absolutely. I have the able2know MOD installed and EasyMod will apply any new updates without blinking.

 

thanks minstrel ,

there were two files in the able2know seo mod ...

Able2Know.com Search Engine Optimization 2.0.0.txt
and
phpBB static URLs mod _rewrite 1.0.0.txt

so i reversed the changes made under the second file - phpBB static URLs mod _rewrite 1.0.0.txt

now when a guest is looking at a post it will have the address - http://uglued.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=180406#180406

instead of the .html one .. does search engine index links that have a ? in it and p=180406 and so on ? i read somewhere that search engines find it difficult to read links with a question mark in it ..

also msn had indexed some 2000 pages from my forum with .html so now i will have to wait and hope that they index the php ones , rite ?

thanks .

 

No. The question mark and certain parameters following the question mark are not a problem. You'll find plenty of those URLs indexed here