new to phpbb seo premod

seo_lady · Joined: 10 Jun 2008 Posts: 9

Hi guys,

Im new to mods and i need help. I already set-up a new forum with some 10 post or less. It does not have any mod.

1. Do i need to download the "3.0.1 to 3.0.2 Auto update 1.0" and "3.0.1 to 3.0.2 Changed Files 1.0 " or everything is already included in the latest package?

2. How to install? well yes i already read this post:
http://www.phpbb-seo.com/boards/phpbb-seo-premod/discussions-vt1962.html

but i want to be safe. i must delete all files and replace it with this mode files? So it means i would only two folders (contrib & root) right?

3. We already have robots.txt in the root directory of our site so i dont need to add the robot.txt from phpbb-seo premod?

4. I already modified a style so i just copy its folder inside the style directory of the phpbb-seo premod?

5. what happens to the old posts?

thanks a lot

MrGroove · PR0 Joined: 17 Oct 2008 Posts: 59 Location: groovyPost.com

Hello,

Will try to answer as many questions as I can Wink

1 - If it's a new site with no "real" users on it, you have a few options. The first is to just nuke the old site and start over with the phpbb3 3.0.2 Premod. That's probably the easiest.

The other option is to do a fresh Premod phpbb3 install in a different folder from your current forum and after the install perform a migration. The process is simple and all in the Installer GUI. You can play with it several times being that it will not affect your original install.

2 - Are you installing the board in the root of your site or in a subfolder (forum). Either way, just unzip the premod files and copy the root folder into the location you want to install. The instructions are very detailed and should be easy to follow (they are found inside the installer). If your installing over your old forum, I would reccomend saving it's style folder and config.php file so you can re-use those later to connect to your database and styles.

3 - Once you turn on all the re-writes, you will need to copy the following (at a minimum) into your existing robots.txt file:

seo_lady · Joined: 10 Jun 2008 Posts: 9

thanks a lot Smile

MrGroove · PR0 Joined: 17 Oct 2008 Posts: 59 Location: groovyPost.com

Keep us updated Smile

seo_lady · Joined: 10 Jun 2008 Posts: 9

the instructions from HERE worked for me. At first i was confused with the instructions coz the mod has a "root" folder and when we use our ftp we also say "root" to main directory Laughing

Anyways, i successfully installed the mod. Im on the middle of setting it up. But i have a some quick questions:

1. what is SID? should i turn it on?
2. what is this "highlights" remove? should i turn it on?
3. since this i just installed the phpbbseo, i should NOT turn on the zero duplicate after a few months right? minimum number of months?
4. should i turn on "no duplicate"? is it the same with zero duplicate?
4. the zero duplicate will just automatically redirects?(wow cool!) or i need some options/coding to do?
5. should delete the files(except htaccess) in my cache folder?
6. any other advice?

thanks guys, i really appreciate it. Smile

SeO · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 8:57 am Post subject: Re: new to phpbb seo premod

1) SID is the session ID variable, used to keep track of user sessions on the forum.
It is usually stored in a cookie, but can under some circumstances (after login for example) show up in url.
There is no real need to activate the SID removal option since there is in all cases no way to see and url indexed with the sid in it. The option is mainly there for users who cannot believe that bot will not index them while they see some from time to time.

2)highlights is the variable in which the searched words are stored to be highlighted in posts, example : http://www.phpbb-seo.com/boards/phpbb-seo-premod/seo-url-premod-vt1549.html?highlight=premod
Problem with these is that they are duplicates of the sams url without highlights.
The good thing with the dynamic meta tag mod, included in the SEO premod, is that it will output a noindex,follow meta robot tag whenever an highlight would be used, preventing this kind of possible duplicate indexing.
You can additionally decide to only allow logged in user to use them with the option you mentioned.

3) The zero duplicate should always be turned on, with post redirection to at least guests if you want to make sure that no duplicates will ever be indexed on your forum. The 2 month delay refers to the robots.txt implementation, which should be implemented after at least two month if your forum previously was indexed using the natural urls.

4.1) The zero duplicate will redirect all possible duplicates such as :
http://www.phpbb-seo.com/boards/is-this-a/duplicate-vt1549.html
It does not change the links in the forum while the no duplicate will replace post urls with the corresponding (pagination included) topic url in the forum. It as well adds last topic titles on forum index.
It is activated on the demo server : http://phpbb3.phpbb-seo.net/

4.2)Yes, if of course activated. The post redirection option is the "tricky one", read the description, it concern the way post urls will be handled.

5)If you are talking about the phpBB's cache folder (not phpbb_seo/'s one), then, you need to refresh it once installed, this can be done as you say or directly form the acp.

6)Usually I'd have advised you to now install GYM sitemaps & RSS (included in the premod), but we're about to update it, so you may prefer to wait few more days Wink

So this leads us to "wait and see now", or even up to enjoy Very Happy

seo_lady · Joined: 10 Jun 2008 Posts: 9

wow, everything is answered here. Now i understand. ok i have turned on "no duplicate" and "zero duplicate".

ok the problem is the usual "404 error". our forum is in a subdirectory and not in the main directory of our site. I searched here about this error and i see that its about htaccess. I checked my htaccess and all i see is:

SeO · Posted: Tue Nov 11, 2008 10:13 am Post subject: Re: new to phpbb seo premod

You need to generate a .htaccess using the .htaccess generator in acp and place it where the red messages tells you to Wink

About the robots.txt, you most likely need to edit the paths in it, as explained in the install file, and to read carefully the warnings about it.

seo_lady · Joined: 10 Jun 2008 Posts: 9

yes i managed to add generate & add the code to htaccess in the site's root. We already had an htaccess so i just added the code in the bottom. BUT it doesnt work. So i transferred the code at the beginning, coz i think maybe the htaccess code ended before it reached the phpbb seo code. So thats it finally working! Laughing

However, i see that the topic just say "topic4.html" how can i change it to the topic name let say "php_seo_installation.html" not "topic4.html"

I found some answers HERE saying about changing the rewrite type to "advance". Is that the only solution? and when applied do i need to update from start? like htaccess, etc.

thanks again Smile

SeO · Posted: Wed Nov 12, 2008 8:23 am Post subject: Re: new to phpbb seo premod

Yes you need to use the advanced mode to have topit titles injected into their urls.
You'll have to generate a new .htaccess.

As well note that hitting the "more options" option in the .htaccess generator will activate an new option to allow you to generate an .htaccess meant to be used in phpBB's dir (instead of domain's root) if you prefer.

seo_lady · Joined: 10 Jun 2008 Posts: 9

i just changed to "advanced", generate new code and paste it to root's htaccess. everything is working perfectly now.

Thanks a lot for your help Smile

MrGroove · PR0 Joined: 17 Oct 2008 Posts: 59 Location: groovyPost.com

Excellent! Congrats!