Hey, my site is at http://www.gamers-retreat.com/ and I installed tried installing this mod, but I can't seem to get it working. If I click on a forum from the index, I get a 404 and this is the url:

Code: Select all

http://www.gamers-retreat.com/%5C/announcements-f1/

Even if I take out the %5C it still doesn't work.

The only part in the installation I could not get working was this:

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

<a href="#p{postrow.POST_ID}">

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

<a href="{U_VIEW_TOPIC}#p{postrow.POST_ID}">

But I doubt that has anything to do with it. The other thing is the robots.txt. Where do I find that?

Sorry for all the questions, and thanks for the mod, I can't wait to get it working!

Thanks.

by the way, I reinstalled the backups in the mean time so that I don't have a lot of down time. Thanks again.

This one is weird.

%5C stands for \ (urlencoded), so it looks like you're hosted on a windows server.

Please confirm, and if so and your server has the isapi_rewrite module installed on IIS, we'll be able to make it work. The isapi_rewrtie is more or less the same thing as mod_rewrite with Apache servers.

I'm not so sure about the FIND you have problem with, it is not related with forum links in all cases.

If you only had trouble finding the code to change, only look for :

Code: Select all

#p{postrow.POST_ID}

at first to find the proper line.

++

The reason I couldn't find that part is because I'm using a different style, but I didn't think it would have messed with the forum urls. btw, I couldn't even find that code.

Anyway, I think I am running on a windows server, but I'm not understanding what the isapi_rewrite module is?

Sorry for the questions and thanks for the support.

Well, URL rewriting relies on the interaction of two things : we need to change the links used in the output and to make them work.

One Apache Servers (linux), it's the mod_rewrite module to be required for the rewritten url to work. This module is widely installed on Apache servers, but not on all and is required. It's the one using the rewriterules in .htaccess.

With windows server, the module to do the same thing is called isapi_rewrite, it's a bit different to use, but once you'll have made sure about it, I'll provide the proper rewriterule to be used in a file called httpd.ini.

Ask your host about it.

++

I just got a reply from the hosting company that the server is on standard Windows 2003 Server os, without isapi_rewrite installed.

Is there anything else possible to SEO my urls without it?

nope.

Some do play with 404 error pages to perform pseudo url rewriting, but, it's not really a safe technique and beside, I'm not sure your host would not, once he would discover the trick, allow it this long.

You can try to convince him to install the free version of isapi_rewrite from http://www.helicontech.com/

Moving to a linux hosting is as well something to consider.

++

Alright, then, thanks for all your help. This host hasn't been the greatest anyway, I'll probably move after this quarter. Thanks again, you've been a huge help.

You're welcome