seriously thinking about trying this, but is there an easy way to stop them trying to follow links such as insteant message and report to mod as they are just a waste of resources.

Suppose I could rewrite those links too and then specify them to be ignore in a robots.txt

YaBB SE Version: 1.5.4
PHP Version:
MySQL Version:
Server Platform:
Link to Forum:

Problem Description:


I've extolled the virtues of YaBB SE on other messageboards such as WebHostingTalk, SitePointForums, or Forum-Forum. And the software really is great. The ease of modification is excellent.

However, the biggest weakness YaBB SE has is that it's pages cannot normally be indexed by search engines. This is something other major forum software such as vBulletin, Inivision Power Boards, and phpbb actually have openly available as mods. YaBB SE is the exception.

The ability for my forums to be spidered by search engines is an essential requirement of the forum software I use.

Now, I believe I've raised this topic at least three times now – and each time people have either hinted or else spoken outright about how they have achieved full forum indexing on their own YaBB SE's.

The lack of complete instructions, though, has been very frustrating.

To be fair people have made comments they believed helpful, and [unknown] does a superb job about the YaBB SE community in general trying to help everyone.

I'm quite capable of editing code according to instructions. What I need is someone at YaBB SE to actually care to explain publicly and  in layman's (ie, non-programmer) terms how to modify the YaBB SE code – even .htacess or robots.txt if necessary – so that I can ensure my small YaBB SE forums can be fully indexed by search engines.

This is simply my final attempt to address the matter.

Excellent suggestions, Metho.

Topic merged.

Quote
I posted it in the "help" section precisely because help was being asked for.

The help was being provided here, in the mod ideas forum. Just as if you have a problem with a mod you ask for help in the completed mods forum, not the other help forum. You were already receiving help in this thread, and asked for help in a new thread, hence cross-posting.

QuoteI was very grateful for [unknown]'s suggestions in this thread, but alas they did not work. I also tried it on my other forum - a supermod - just in case, but there was no change there either.

After looking over all of this, I decided to try to get it working for one of my forums just for fun. I haven't actually been able to get Unknown's method to work yet. I've only spent about 15 minutes on it though and I'm sure I'm omitting something, so I'll keep trying. I did, however, get hprod's method working. If you follow his example exactly on page three of this thread, you're board will index all board links as html files. Then just look how he modified the scripturl line in boardindex and try to carry it over to message index and the additions to the .htaccess file.

QuoteI'm not quite sure why Methonis is so indignant at my asking, though - but if anybody else would prefer I just shut up about the whole issue then please tell me. Everytime I ask I end up with negative karma, so I feel regarded a nuisance simply for pursuing the matter.

I wasn't at all preturbed by you asking questions about this. In fact, I was following this thread, just curiously watching it develop myself. What got me was the way you announced your frustration with not being able to get this particular piece of code to work and somewhat suggested that it was through fault of the people supporting it, whereas what you should've done is taken what they'd given you, and play around with it. Read a bit on the files you're modifying. Or, if all else fails, post a link to your phpinfo and actually post any possible piece of information you think could be the reason it's not working (code). Like I said, I haven't gotten Unknown's method working yet, but I'm sure it does work when implemented properly. You just have to keep trying. And hopefully with some tinkering, you'll get it, or someone will come back to this thread with the answer.

Methonis

Quote from: [Unknown] on June 11, 2003, 11:25:54 PM
I posted something in this board telling exactly how to make it use slashes. (I don't take credit, someone posted something and I made it work with YaBB SE.)

So, it'd be like:
http://www.yabbse.org/community/index/board/141/action/display/threadid/23503

But, I like this a bit more, it would however take something like this...

Code Select Expand

function ob_url_rewrite($buffer)
{
  return preg_replace(
     array('~"' . preg_quote($scripturl, '~') . '\?board=(\d+)"~', '~"' . preg_quote($scripturl, '~') . '\?board=(\d+);action=display;threadid=(\d+)"~', '~"' . preg_quote($scripturl, '~') . '\?board=(\d+);action=display;threadid=(\d+);start=(\d+)"~'),
     array('"' . $boardurl . '_\\1.html"', '"' . $boardurl . '_\\1_\\2.html"', '"' . $boardurl . '_\\1_\\2_\\3.html"'),
     $buffer);
}

And then just add that with ob_start('ob_url_rewrite');.

Then use the rewrite stuff...

Code Select Expand

RewriteRule ^(.*)community_(\d+).html $1community/index.php?board=$2
RewriteRule ^(.*)community_(\d+)_(\d+).html $1community/index.php?board=$2;action=display;threadid=$3
RewriteRule ^(.*)community_(\d+)_(\d+)_(\d+).html $1community/index.php?board=$2;action=display;threadid=$3;start=$4

-[Unknown]

Does this require me to use .htaccess Rewriterule command, from mod_rewrite Apache module?

I never said I was sure it worked, I just said that if that worked this is how you could do it.

I don't use apache.

-[Unknown]

<edited>

Brian, I absolutly agree with you.

Professionals from SE team - you are doing great job, but your forum now one of the most professional forums, I realy belive that permanent page location is the attribute of professionalism. And this is only first side on the other one is stopping indexing of everything but messages.... I know that <noindex></noindex> tags working in most cases. Then meta tags, somewhere in settings you should give us chances to insert information for such meta tags as
<meta name="keywords" content="">
<meta name="description" content="">   
<meta name="Author" content="">
<meta name="Author-Email" content="">
<meta name="Robots" content="all">
<meta name="Revisit" content="1 days">
<meta name="Classification" content="">
<meta name="Category" content=""">
<meta name="Copyright" content="">