BamaStangGuy
03-22-2006, 01:51 AM
VBSEO (http://www.vbseo.com/aff/idevaffiliate.php?id=126). First off I want to say that VBSEO is not overpriced. It does what it does VERY well. It has many features that go beyond just URL rewriting and includes them in a very convenient control panel. It is very organized. It causes VERY minimal impact on server load among many other features that I will go into in great detail within this post.
Please note that the views that I express within this post are mine and do not in anyway reflect the views held by the VBSEO team. As you will surely see some of my views differ from theirs.
Let us get into the features offered by VBSEO. I will list the features offered by starting at the top of their configuration page and go from there. I will not be listing every single option, just the ones that will be the most valuable to you and in my opinion get you the best results.
General Settings
301 Redirect Original Content - By Enabling this option you are effectively redirecting the old showthread.php?t=22213 to the new static and rewritten url that will look something like /seo-your-vbulletin-forum.html. I recommend enabling this option so that all your old urls that are linked from other websites and still in the search engines cache will be redirected to the new url once clicked. This preserves page rank.
"File Not Found" requests handling? When you type in a location that does not exist on a website you will by default see an 404 Error message in your browser. VBSEO gives you the option of instead of showing the error message redirecting that person or search engine bot to the mainpage of your forum. This keeps the person/bot on your site and gives them the oppurtunity to browse/spider further instead of just stopping at the error message and closing the browser and leaving. This is what I use on all of my sites and I recommend.
Log & Tracking Options
Log Spider Activity in your Forums?
Set this option to 'Yes' to log Search Engine Spider activity on your Forums. This option requires the vBSEO Google / Yahoo Sitemap Generator installed. If you do not have the VBSEO Google / Yahoo Sitemap Generator installed you need to get this asap. It is free and works even if you do not have VBSEO. This is a VERY useful feature as it shows you the activity of all the major Search Engine spiders on your forum!
Add Google Analytics Code to your Forum Pages?
Select "Yes" to add the Google Analytics code to all your forum pages. Not only all forum pages but if you have a portal like vBadvanced installed it will ensure that Google Analytics is on those pages as well. This is also more effiecent than putting it in the headerinclude template as the headerinclude template does not include it in the archives! This option will place Google Analytics code on any page rewritten by VBSEO. This means the archive as well. This means you can be sure that all your forum is being tracked and you do not even have to edit a template for it!
Add Google Analytics "Tracking External Link Clicks" Code? NEW!
Select "Yes" to add the Google Analytics External Link Tracking code to all your external links. This feature enables you to track clicks on outbound links via your Google Analytics account. Again a very useful feature that requires no template edits just a simple click and save from the VBSEO control panel.
Enable Adsense Section Targeting? NEW! BETA
Select "Yes" to add Google AdSense section tags to relevant parts of your forum pages within forumhome, forumdisplay and showthread. This makes sure that just the content within your posts are seen by the adsense spider! Meaning signatures and postbit have no effect on what shows on your adsense ads.
vB's Archive Options
Welcome to one of the most controversial options in VBSEO :) I will spend a lot of time covering this as I firmly disagree with what the VBSEO team recommends for this setting.
Here are the exact settings they offer you for the archive:
Archive Options:
301 Redirect vB's Archive Thread Pages
'301 redirects' are "Google's Safe" way of moving content. Select this option to save your 'Page Ranking' while redirecting spiders (and users) to the new, static pages.
Rewrite vB's Archive Thread Pages
This option rewrites URLs so that original content is linked from within the archives, providing an excellent vBulletin sitemap.
Rewrite + 301 Redirect Archive Pages
This is a combination of options 1 and 2 (above). This option rewrites URLs so that original content is linked from within the archives AND also adds 301 redirects to the archive thread pages. Therefore, (a) it works as a sitemap for the static site and (b) it ensures that incoming links pointing to the old archive thread pages are redirected to the new, static pages also.
Keep vB's Archive default settings
Keeps VB archive stock. No changes made.
My choice and my reasoning behind it:
Keep vB's Archive default settings
This is what I have chosen to do for the time being. The big deciding factor for me doing this is the potential revenue earning that the archive has. The owner of sportsoutlaw.com was seeing revenue in the area of 60 dollars a day before turning off his archive and using it as a sitemap. After turning the archive off he went to about 60 dollars a month. That is quite a big drop and would make a few of us cry to lose that kind of revenue.
Not only that but Google has shown me no reason to believe that they are taking the archive as duplicate content. If Google is not going to hurt you for having it and it is going to make you more money with it enabled it is pretty obvious to me what I am going to do.
Rewrite Archive Root
Use this feature to replace the default '/archive/index.php/' part of the archive pages to a more search engine friendly version. You may change this to what you want.
NOTE: Old archive root URLs will be 301 redirected to the new custom formats. Therefore, previously indexed archive pages will still be found by both users and spiders.
Url Rewrite Settings
VBSEO rewrites the following urls:
Forum Display
Showthread
Showpost
Announcements
Printthread
Polls
Member Profiles
Avatars
Attachments
Navbar Image Bullets
You can have the URLS with the forum name or many many other possible variations. Check out VBSEO's site for a complete list of different variations.
I recommend that you only rewrite the urls you WANT Search Engines to see. For example the only URLS I rewrite are Showthread, Member Profiles and the Archive root! Nothing else on my forum is rewritten to save on server load. I also disallow everything else in a robots.txt file.
Non Forum Pages:
I can confirm that you can rewrite your vBadvanced CMPS pages with VBSEO.
SEO Functions
Replace the 'META KEYWORDS' Content
Replaces the 'META KEYWORDS' dynamically with content relevant to the page being displayed. Affects forums, threads, posts & member profiles. I have this enabled.
Replace the 'META DESCRIPTION' Content
This option replaces the 'META DESCRIPTION' content with the first words of the first posting in the page to a limit defined in the option below. I have this enabled as well.
Other Enhancements
Remove Thread Preview Text For Guest Visitors
Thread titles in forumdisplay links often contain "contributory" keywords related to the parent forum. Removing the thread preview text for unregistered visitors may help increase the relevant keyword ratio for these pages.
NOTE: Thread Preview Text is the text that appears when hovering thread links within the forumdisplay links.
I have this turned on and believe it to be very useful :)
External domains "Blacklist"
Enter domains list that will ALWAYS have Rel='nofollow' added to the links regardless of your other configuration settings.
Examples:
google.com (no 'http://www' required)
groups.google.com
This has been very useful to me when I find a link that someone has placed on my site that is not of high quality I can simply add that domain to the Blacklist and have it marked as nofollow
Footer Archive Links
What this does is add links to your Archive pages in the footer of your forum. This allows search engines to quickly find these pages and to distribute higher PR across the pages. An example of what this looks like can be found on my Ford Mustang (http://www.mustangevolution.com/forum/) website at the bottom. Everything after Archive Links: is automatically generated via VBSEO.
The options you have with this setting:
Add Links to the Archive Main Pages
Select "Yes" to add the links to archive sitemap pages at the footer of every page.
Add Links to ALL Archive Pages
Add Multiple Pages per Forum in Footer Archives Links
Do not add Links to Archive Pages
My setting is Add Links to the Archive Main Pages
Direct Category Links
Set this option to "Yes" to enable anchor type links for forum categories.
NOTE: Link to categories will look like "http://yourforumsroot/#category_title" An example: http://www.mustangevolution.com/forum/forum254/
In closing
If you have any questions about a feature I did not cover or want to hear more about something I mentioned feel free to respond. If you disagree with my views feel free to open up debate! I think I am correct but I do not know everything and if you have information that could be valuable to me and others please share!
Updated last on May 22, 2006:
Please note that the views that I express within this post are mine and do not in anyway reflect the views held by the VBSEO team. As you will surely see some of my views differ from theirs.
Let us get into the features offered by VBSEO. I will list the features offered by starting at the top of their configuration page and go from there. I will not be listing every single option, just the ones that will be the most valuable to you and in my opinion get you the best results.
General Settings
301 Redirect Original Content - By Enabling this option you are effectively redirecting the old showthread.php?t=22213 to the new static and rewritten url that will look something like /seo-your-vbulletin-forum.html. I recommend enabling this option so that all your old urls that are linked from other websites and still in the search engines cache will be redirected to the new url once clicked. This preserves page rank.
"File Not Found" requests handling? When you type in a location that does not exist on a website you will by default see an 404 Error message in your browser. VBSEO gives you the option of instead of showing the error message redirecting that person or search engine bot to the mainpage of your forum. This keeps the person/bot on your site and gives them the oppurtunity to browse/spider further instead of just stopping at the error message and closing the browser and leaving. This is what I use on all of my sites and I recommend.
Log & Tracking Options
Log Spider Activity in your Forums?
Set this option to 'Yes' to log Search Engine Spider activity on your Forums. This option requires the vBSEO Google / Yahoo Sitemap Generator installed. If you do not have the VBSEO Google / Yahoo Sitemap Generator installed you need to get this asap. It is free and works even if you do not have VBSEO. This is a VERY useful feature as it shows you the activity of all the major Search Engine spiders on your forum!
Add Google Analytics Code to your Forum Pages?
Select "Yes" to add the Google Analytics code to all your forum pages. Not only all forum pages but if you have a portal like vBadvanced installed it will ensure that Google Analytics is on those pages as well. This is also more effiecent than putting it in the headerinclude template as the headerinclude template does not include it in the archives! This option will place Google Analytics code on any page rewritten by VBSEO. This means the archive as well. This means you can be sure that all your forum is being tracked and you do not even have to edit a template for it!
Add Google Analytics "Tracking External Link Clicks" Code? NEW!
Select "Yes" to add the Google Analytics External Link Tracking code to all your external links. This feature enables you to track clicks on outbound links via your Google Analytics account. Again a very useful feature that requires no template edits just a simple click and save from the VBSEO control panel.
Enable Adsense Section Targeting? NEW! BETA
Select "Yes" to add Google AdSense section tags to relevant parts of your forum pages within forumhome, forumdisplay and showthread. This makes sure that just the content within your posts are seen by the adsense spider! Meaning signatures and postbit have no effect on what shows on your adsense ads.
vB's Archive Options
Welcome to one of the most controversial options in VBSEO :) I will spend a lot of time covering this as I firmly disagree with what the VBSEO team recommends for this setting.
Here are the exact settings they offer you for the archive:
Archive Options:
301 Redirect vB's Archive Thread Pages
'301 redirects' are "Google's Safe" way of moving content. Select this option to save your 'Page Ranking' while redirecting spiders (and users) to the new, static pages.
Rewrite vB's Archive Thread Pages
This option rewrites URLs so that original content is linked from within the archives, providing an excellent vBulletin sitemap.
Rewrite + 301 Redirect Archive Pages
This is a combination of options 1 and 2 (above). This option rewrites URLs so that original content is linked from within the archives AND also adds 301 redirects to the archive thread pages. Therefore, (a) it works as a sitemap for the static site and (b) it ensures that incoming links pointing to the old archive thread pages are redirected to the new, static pages also.
Keep vB's Archive default settings
Keeps VB archive stock. No changes made.
My choice and my reasoning behind it:
Keep vB's Archive default settings
This is what I have chosen to do for the time being. The big deciding factor for me doing this is the potential revenue earning that the archive has. The owner of sportsoutlaw.com was seeing revenue in the area of 60 dollars a day before turning off his archive and using it as a sitemap. After turning the archive off he went to about 60 dollars a month. That is quite a big drop and would make a few of us cry to lose that kind of revenue.
Not only that but Google has shown me no reason to believe that they are taking the archive as duplicate content. If Google is not going to hurt you for having it and it is going to make you more money with it enabled it is pretty obvious to me what I am going to do.
Rewrite Archive Root
Use this feature to replace the default '/archive/index.php/' part of the archive pages to a more search engine friendly version. You may change this to what you want.
NOTE: Old archive root URLs will be 301 redirected to the new custom formats. Therefore, previously indexed archive pages will still be found by both users and spiders.
Url Rewrite Settings
VBSEO rewrites the following urls:
Forum Display
Showthread
Showpost
Announcements
Printthread
Polls
Member Profiles
Avatars
Attachments
Navbar Image Bullets
You can have the URLS with the forum name or many many other possible variations. Check out VBSEO's site for a complete list of different variations.
I recommend that you only rewrite the urls you WANT Search Engines to see. For example the only URLS I rewrite are Showthread, Member Profiles and the Archive root! Nothing else on my forum is rewritten to save on server load. I also disallow everything else in a robots.txt file.
Non Forum Pages:
I can confirm that you can rewrite your vBadvanced CMPS pages with VBSEO.
SEO Functions
Replace the 'META KEYWORDS' Content
Replaces the 'META KEYWORDS' dynamically with content relevant to the page being displayed. Affects forums, threads, posts & member profiles. I have this enabled.
Replace the 'META DESCRIPTION' Content
This option replaces the 'META DESCRIPTION' content with the first words of the first posting in the page to a limit defined in the option below. I have this enabled as well.
Other Enhancements
Remove Thread Preview Text For Guest Visitors
Thread titles in forumdisplay links often contain "contributory" keywords related to the parent forum. Removing the thread preview text for unregistered visitors may help increase the relevant keyword ratio for these pages.
NOTE: Thread Preview Text is the text that appears when hovering thread links within the forumdisplay links.
I have this turned on and believe it to be very useful :)
External domains "Blacklist"
Enter domains list that will ALWAYS have Rel='nofollow' added to the links regardless of your other configuration settings.
Examples:
google.com (no 'http://www' required)
groups.google.com
This has been very useful to me when I find a link that someone has placed on my site that is not of high quality I can simply add that domain to the Blacklist and have it marked as nofollow
Footer Archive Links
What this does is add links to your Archive pages in the footer of your forum. This allows search engines to quickly find these pages and to distribute higher PR across the pages. An example of what this looks like can be found on my Ford Mustang (http://www.mustangevolution.com/forum/) website at the bottom. Everything after Archive Links: is automatically generated via VBSEO.
The options you have with this setting:
Add Links to the Archive Main Pages
Select "Yes" to add the links to archive sitemap pages at the footer of every page.
Add Links to ALL Archive Pages
Add Multiple Pages per Forum in Footer Archives Links
Do not add Links to Archive Pages
My setting is Add Links to the Archive Main Pages
Direct Category Links
Set this option to "Yes" to enable anchor type links for forum categories.
NOTE: Link to categories will look like "http://yourforumsroot/#category_title" An example: http://www.mustangevolution.com/forum/forum254/
In closing
If you have any questions about a feature I did not cover or want to hear more about something I mentioned feel free to respond. If you disagree with my views feel free to open up debate! I think I am correct but I do not know everything and if you have information that could be valuable to me and others please share!
Updated last on May 22, 2006: